For complete coverage of 2010 Olympic Skiing, including events, competitors, schedules, and news go to the 2010 Olympic Skiing Guide.
2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Freestyle Skiing Competition Explanations
The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Freestyle Skiing competition events will consist of men's and women's mogul, aerial and ski cross events. Aerials were first seen in Olympic competition in 1994, while freestyle moguls became a sanctioned discipline "way back" in 1992 at Albertville, France. The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics will see the debut of Olympic Ski Cross competition.
The Mogul and Aerial competition are totally dependent on judges scoring and Ski Cross is often described as moto-cross on snow. Following are some explanations to better understand the scoring to determine medalists in each discipline.
Freestyle Mogul Competition
The course is a set of manmade moguls, or bumps, on a steep slope that will provide 3 or 4 lines or paths down. Two "air moguls", or jumps are built into the course - one about 1/2 way down and the other close to the bottom. The goal is to ski down through the bumps as fast as possible doing the tricks off the 2 jumps.
The skiers are judged by "turning" judges and "jumping" judges. Skiers are rated on quality of turning - based on a model of still upper body facing down the hill and just moving the knees and lower body while striving to keep ski on snow contact. The jumps need to include any of a series of spins, flips and twisting tricks.
Each segment of judges awards points on quality and technical performance in their specific area of coverage. All competitors are judged in a qualification round. The top 20 skiers then move into the final and the skier order of finish is determined by total points.
Aerials Competition
Freestyle aerial competition require the competitors to ski a ramp leading to a high kick-off jump. Each "kicker block" is built to a varying formula of rate-of-rise to distance of the initial rise to the top. This allows the competitors to pre-choose 2 of the collection of back flips, twists and turns they will perform based on their own style and technique. What they choose combines to a degree of difficulty for perfection.
All the competitors must do two jumps in a qualification round. The 16 with the highest total scores from that round move on to the final round. In that round, they again are required to state and do two more jumps.
Judging is on on the quality, or smoothness of the take off, the height gained, how well they hold the form and body position compared to what would be "perfect", and also how well they hold their balance upon landing. Final order of finish is based on the highest combined score from the two final jumps.
Ski Cross Competition
Ski Cross is a skiing competition event where skiers race in a mass start group of four on a course of bumps and turns best described as a vertical snow covered motorbike "motocross" venue (from which the official name Ski Cross and similar monikers "skicross" amd "ski-X" are derived).
All race the course individually for qualification and then grouped into "heats" or group runs of 4 skiers based on the time of the qualification run. Each heat race is sent off on signal and the racers head down as fast as possible - mindful that interference when skiing or passing can lead to disqualification.
The first two racers in each heat advance to the next round and so on until there are only 4 competitors for the medal final determining the order of 1 - 4 finishers.
