Slopestyle is a

winter sport Winter sports or winter activities are competitive sports or non-competitive recreational activities which are played on snow or ice. Most are variations of skiing, ice skating and sledding. Traditionally, such games were only played in cold are ...

in which athletes

ski A ski is a narrow strip of semi-rigid material worn underfoot to glide over snow. Substantially longer than wide and characteristically employed in pairs, skis are attached to ski boots with ski bindings, with either a free, lockable, or partia ...

or snowboard down a course including a variety of obstacles including rails, jumps and other

terrain park A terrain park or snow park is an outdoor recreation area containing terrain that allows skiers, snowboarders and snowbikers to perform tricks. Terrain parks have their roots in skateparks and many of the features are common to both. From their ...

features. Points are scored for amplitude, originality and quality of tricks. The discipline has its roots in action sports like skateboarding and BMX and has very successfully crossed over into the snow sports worlds of skiing and snowboarding. Skiers use

Twin-tip ski A modified version of their alpine counterparts, twin-tip skis are designed to enable a skier to take off and land backward while jumping and to ski backwards (switch) down a slope. The name "twin-tip" comes from the dual shape of the ski. While m ...

s for their symmetry since they often go large portions of the course backward (referred to as "switch") and for their balanced weight so as to not destabilize spins. Slopestyle tricks fall mainly into four categories: spins, grinds, grabs and flips, and most tricks done in competition are a combination of these. Slopestyle is one of the freestyle disciplines, along with moguls, aerials,

cross A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a sa ...

big air Big air is a high-injury-risk sports discipline where the competitor rides a vehicle, such as a motocross motorcycle, a skateboard, a snowboard, or a pair of skis, down a hill or ramp and performs aerial tricks after launching off very large jumps ...

and half-pipe.

History of Slopestyle

Competitive slopestyle started in 1997. Slopestyle became an Olympic event, in both skiing and snowboarding forms, at the 2014 Winter Games in

Sochi, Russia Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg) is the largest resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi River, along the Black Sea in Southern Russia, with a population of 466,078 residents, up to 600,000 residents i ...

. The first Olympic champions in Slopestyle Skiing were American Joss Christensen for the men and Canadian

Dara Howell Dara Howell (born August 23, 1994) is a Canadian freestyle skier. She was the first freestyle skier to win a gold medal in ski slopestyle at the inaugural event at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Howell has also won a bronze medal in women's s ...

for the women. The first Olympic champions for Snowboarding Slopestyle were both Americans,

Sage Kotsenburg Sage Kotsenburg (born July 27, 1993) is an American snowboarder. He won the first-ever Olympic gold medal in men's snowboard slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, and became the first gold medalist at these Olympics. Kot ...

for the men and Jamie Anderson for the women.

Competition

In competition, athletes compete for points awarded by judges on a structured basis. The scoring criteria vary from one organization to another and from each event to the next, but in general athletes are judged on these criteria: * Amplitude: Height of jumps, also called air. Bigger tricks score higher. * Difficulty:

Degree of difficulty Degree of difficulty (DD, sometimes called tariff or grade) is a concept used in several sports and other competitions to indicate the technical difficulty of a skill, performance, or course, often as a factor in scoring. Sports which incorporate ...

of the tricks. * Execution: How well the athletes perform their tricks. For example, tight rotation, clean grabs, and smooth landing. * Variety: The difference of the tricks within the run. Doing the same trick off all the jumps will not score highly even if it is a very difficult trick. * Progression: How the trick selection progresses the sport, for example brand new tricks will score high because they push the sport forward. * Combinations or flow: The way the athletes string the tricks together. Having to slow down or otherwise reset after a trick will lose points. * Overall: The whole package, including the athlete's personal style. A feature that is somewhat unique to slopestyle and similar events is that even though it is a judged sport, scores cannot be compared between events: "A run that scores 65 at one event may score 75 at another event. The score is just a tool to organize the rankings and may vary based on the range and anchor score set for the day."2018 US Ski and Snowboard Freestyle Competition Guide
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Competitive results

Olympics

References

{{Skiing Types of skiing Snow sports Freestyle skiing Snowboarding