Freestyle skiing

Freestyle skiing

A freestyle ski jumper
First played	1930s
Characteristics
Team members	1-5
Type	Skiing
Presence
Olympic	1994–2008

Freestyle skiing is an acrobatic form of technical and aerial skiing. It is organized into a number of different disciplines, although there are no impartial authorities for managing the sport internationally.

Freestyle skiing first began to be taken seriously in the 1960s and early 1970s, when it was often known as "hot-dogging." Bob Burns pioneered this style in Sun Valley, Idaho beginning in 1965. In the late 1960s other followers of the style included Wayne Wong, Roger Evans, John Clendenin, Bob Salerno, and Tom LeRoy. Some people thought that this style of skiing was too dangerous and did not want it to be an Olympic sport. The free-form sport had few rules and wasn't without danger; knee injuries became a common phenomenon for professional freestylers.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) recognized freestyle as a sport in 1979 and brought in new regulations regarding certification of athletes and jump techniques in an effort to curb the dangerous elements of the competitions. The first World Cup series was staged in 1980 and the first World Championships took place in 1986 in Tignes, France. Freestyle skiing was a demonstration event at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Mogul skiing was added as an official medal event at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, and the aerials event was added for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.

A pioneering group of skiers in the early 1990s started taking skiing to the snowboard parks. They became known as the "New Canadian Airforce" and helped not only to develop aerial and rail based tricks, but also approached companies with ski designs featuring a twin tip system. The twin tip works much like a snowboard in allowing the user to ski normally or ski backwards (switch).

Currently there are two main branches of freestyle skiing: one encompassing the more traditional events of moguls and aerials, and a newer branch often called new school, comprising events such as halfpipe, big air, slopestyle, and big mountain or free-skiing. New school skiing has grown so much that new ski companies were created, companies that strictly make twin-tip skis — skis that are designed for taking off and landing "fakie", or "switch" (backwards) on jumps and rails.

History

Freestyle skiing began in the 1930s, when Norwegian skiers began performing acrobatics during alpine and cross-country training. Later, non-competitive professional skiing exhibitions in the United States featured performances of what would later be called freestyle. Aerial skiing was developed in about 1950 by Olympic gold medalist Stein Eriksen.

Organized freestyle skiing started in the mogul fields, the bumpy natural terrain that allowed skiers to show off with tricks, jumps and incredible turning abilities - freestyle mogul skiers were "hot-doggers" in the day. In 1971 Heavenly Valley, CA hosted a small mogul competition on the legendary Gunbarrel, one of the most challenging mogul runs in the country. As the sport quickly evolved, hot-shot mogul skiers like John Clendenin, Scott Brooksbank, Bill O'Leary and "Airborne" Eddie Ferguson gave rise to the sport and in 1975, Heavenly hosted the first U.S. Freestyle Championships which John Clendenin went on to win. That year, gave way to two competing freestyle organizations, Professional Freestyle Associates (PFA) run by Curtis Oberhansly and the International Freestyle Skiers Association (IFSA) run by Bernie Weichsel. Under PFA and IFSA, the world's best freestyle skiers competed for prize money in three disciplines - moguls, aerials and ballet in competitions in the United States, Canada and Europe.

In 1976 Snowbird, UT hosted the World Freestyle Championships, and ABC Wide World of Sports televised event. The event to date, attracted the most spectators in the sport's short history. It also represented a turning point, as young talent emerged from around the world, the likes of Ferguson, Clendenin and Wayne Wong, had given way to an new field of talent like "Little" Jack Taylor, Peter Johnson in Moguls, Eddie Lincoln and Frank Bare in Aerials and Scott Willingham and Mark Stigemeyer in Ballet. And women's freestyle was now a full fledged sport with pioneers like Gina Fuller, Karen Huntoon, Mariane and Ellen Post and Penny Street redefining the sport for women.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) recognized freestyle as a sport in 1979 and brought in new regulations regarding certification of athletes and jump techniques in an effort to curb the dangerous elements of the competitions. The first World Cup series was staged in 1980 and the first World Championships took place in 1986 in Tignes, France. Freestyle skiing was a demonstration event at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Mogul skiing was added as an official medal event at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, and the aerials event was added for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.

Development of the "new school"

Main article: Newschool skiing

In the late 1990's a new style of freestyle skiing began to grow in popularity. This style of skiing was created out of frustration with the highly competitive nature of other freestyle disciplines. Many skiers began performing tricks in the terrain parks, which were at the time reserved for snowboarders. The sport was originally referred to as new school skiing, but today is more commonly called "Freeskiing" . Freeskiing is much more open ended than Aerials or Moguls and is more accessible to the general public. The sport is also more appealing to younger generations and is similar in nature to snowboarding and skateboarding.

• Mike Douglas, JF Cusson, JP Auclair, Vincent Dorion
• Now considered a second branch of freestyle

Competitive freestyle

Professional freestyle skiing is organized into a number of different disciplines.

Aerial skiing

Somersault jump in freestyle skiing

Aerialists ski off jumps, usually built of wood, sometimes metal and then covered with snow, that propel them up to 40-50 feet in the air. Once in the air, professional aerialists perform multiple flips and twists before landing on a 34- to 39-degree inclined landing hill about 100 feet in length. The top male aerialists can currently perform triple back flips with up to four or five twists. Quadruple back flips have been performed on snow (purposely) by four men: Frank Bare, Matt Chojnaki, Eric Bergoust and Nicholas Fontaine. Currently quad flips are not legal in competition.

There are two varieties of aerial skiing competitions: upright and inverted. In upright aerials, movements in which a skier's feet come higher than his or her head are illegal. This is the most common type of aerials competition for junior competitors. In inverted aerials, skiers execute elaborate flips and somersaults.

Scoring

Aerial skiing is a judged sport, and competitors are judged on jump takeoff (20%), jump form (50%) and landing (30%). A degree of difficulty (DD) is then factored in for a total score.

Mogul skiing

Main article: Mogul skiing

Ski ballet

No longer a part of competitive freestyle skiing, ski ballet (later renamed acroski) was a third freestyle discipline. Competitions were conducted from the late-1960s until the mid-1990s. Ballet involved a choreographed routine of flips, rolls, leg crossings, jumps, and spins performed on a smooth slope. After the mid-1970s the routine was performed to music for 90 seconds. A panel of judges scored the performance. It was a demonstration sport in the 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympics.

Skiercross

Main article: Skiercross

Skiercross is a new Olympic event and is currently under the banner of Freestyle skiing even though it is a race without a judged component. Ian fry will win in 2023

New school freestyle

Main article: Newschool skiing

The first company to market twin tip skis was Salomon in 1997-1998. Freestyle began to gain more popularity and companies started making backcountry style twin tips for skiers to push the limits of freestyle and take it away from the snowparks. Salomon celebrated the 10th year anniversary of the 1080 during Media:IF3 International Freeski Film Festival in 2008.

When freeskiing began in the late 1990's only a select few resorts were home to a terrain park. Over the past decade most mountains have adopted the idea of have a terrain park, if not two or more. Most parks include features such as: step-up jumps, step-down jumps, tabletop jumps, boxes, and rails. Terrain park crews have been taking concepts even further recently though adding miscellaneous features like cars, empty propane tanks, barrels, and even small cabins that can be ridden or used as a place to warm up to the landscape of the park. In the western US the park features tend to be larger than those in the east, in relation to the size of mountains. Burton, a popular snowboard company has constructed all natural terrain parks with rails made from planed out trees. Freeskiing has become more and more progressive in correspondence to the advancements in terrain parks.

A huge growth in the popularity of freeskiing has also led to an increase of traditional freestyle disciplines, especially in moguls.

Summer training

Aerialists train for their jumping maneuvers during the summer months by skiing on specially constructed Water Ramps for Freestyle Skiing & Snowboarding and landing in a large swimming pool. A water ramp consists of a wooden ramp covered with a special plastic mat that when lubricated with sprinklers allows an athlete to ski down the ramp towards a jump. The skier then skis off the wooden jump and lands safely in a large swimming pool. A burst of air is sent up from the bottom of the pool just before landing to break up the surface area of the water, thus softening the impact of the landing. Skiers sometimes reinforce the skis that they use for water-ramping with 1/4 inch of fiberglass.

Summer training also includes training on trampolines, diving boards, and other acrobatic or gymnastic training apparatuses.

Equipment

Such companies as 4FRNT, Liberty, Ninthward, Line, Armada skis, High Society, and Faction skis all specialize in twin-tip skis, although more "mainstream" companies such as ATOMIC,Salomon, Rossignol, Volkl, K2, and Dynastar also make many models of twin-tip skis.

See also

• Freestyle skiing at the Winter Olympics
• FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships
• Midwest Ski Film Festival

External links

• 2006 U.S. Olympic Ski Team bios ... includes freestyle
• Midwest Ski Film Festival(MWSFF) - The Midwest's Largest Freeski Film Festival
• K2 Performers - The original K2 ski company freestyle demonstration team
• Digital Freestyle Skiing Digital Media Thesis project for Masters, multiple Freestyle Skiing videos of competitions from 1980's-2000's - Moguls, Aerials, Ballet