Freestyle skiing

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Phases of a jump

The freestyle skiing summarizes five skill disciplines of alpine skiing together. In the disciplines of freestyle skiing, skiers ski over mogul slopes , jump figures on a ski jump (aerials) or in the halfpipe, and compete in ski cross on a course.

A World Cup in freestyle skiing has been regulated and organized by the International Ski Federation FIS since 1980 . World championships in freestyle skiing have been held since 1986 . Parts of freestyle skiing have also been Olympic since 1992 .

In the German-speaking world, freestyle skiing is also known as trick skiing . The English name is becoming more and more popular due to the spread in the media.

Disciplines

Freestyle skiing is divided into various disciplines, in which a jury evaluates the performance of the athletes with points, and disciplines in which the winner of a direct comparison wins in a head-to-head race. In the point disciplines, the athlete with the highest total number of points wins.

The point disciplines are aerials, moguls, half pipe, big air and slopestyle. These disciplines mean:

  • Aerials : On a ski jump with an almost vertically upward-pointing take-off surface, two artificial jumps combined from somersaults, turns and slides are shown one after the other. Each jump has a fixed level of difficulty. The number of points for a jump results from the multiplication of the points for the difficulty with the points for the execution. The points for both jumps are added together.

  • Moguls (German mogul slope): The athletes drive through an artificially created mogul slope. Two jumps are required, and somersaults have also been allowed since 2003. There are points for the driving speed (25%), the technique used (50%) and for the execution of the jumps (25%).
  • Half pipe : In a half pipe, the athletes show jumps, tricks and maneuvers. Points are awarded for the difficulty and the execution of all actions. All points of a trip are added up.
  • Big Air : A Big Air is a large hill over which the individual riders jump and try to do the most difficult tricks possible. This is assessed by judges in the categories of style, difficulty, level of the trick and landing. An example of this type of event is the King Of Style Contest.
  • Slopestyle : A slopestyle course can be compared to a skate park. There are jumps and rails in various variations. The course is set up in such a way that the drivers have many options for combining the individual elements. In a competition, attention is paid to how the driver uses the individual elements (creativity), which tricks he does and how he performs them. Slopestyle is done with skis bent at both ends (so-called twin tips ).

Former point disciplines are:

  • Acro (German ballet ): In the ski ballet , dance-like figures and jumps were performed on a smooth, slightly inclined slope and rated according to points.

The disciplines with a direct comparison are Dual Moguls and Skicross:

  • Dual Moguls (German parallel mogul slope): Two athletes ride the moguls head-to-head against each other. The qualification takes place as an individual race, the final of the best 16 is then held in dual format. 16th place against 1, 15 against 2, 14 against 3 ... races with dual finals are now part of the individual World Cup. There has not been a dedicated dual World Cup since 2003, the old format can only be used at world championships. (Dual from the beginning; the winner moves on to the next round)
  • Skicross : In a knockout system with so-called heats, four to six athletes compete against each other on a course. The qualification for the KO system is determined by a qualification or time trial. The course contains banked turns, jumps, waves and other elements that challenge the skill of the driver. The first two finishers advance to the next round. The places are determined in a small (5–8) and a large final (1–4). All previously eliminated will be rated according to the qualification times. In 2010, this discipline was held in Vancouver for the first time at the Olympic Winter Games.

History of freestyle skiing

The origins of skilful movement on skis go back to the 1920s. Today, however, the creator of modern freestyle skiing is the Norwegian Olympic champion and world champion in alpine giant slalom from 1952, Stein Eriksen .

In the 1960s, various forms of freestyle skiing became more and more popular in the USA under the name "hot dogging" . In 1966, the first organized competitions were held in Waterville Valley , New Hampshire . The first professional competitions took place in 1971.

Parts of this sport were documented in 1969 in the short film " Happening in White " by Gunter Sachs . Representatives of the sport included Tom Leroy , Hermann Göllner , Roger Staub and Art Furrer . The set was supplemented with other winter sports enthusiasts. Peter Thomas provided the background music . The film was honored with the First Prize of the International Olympic Committee in 1972 and was a milestone in film history because of the super slow motion used for the first time. An even more earth-shattering and noticeably longer implementation for this division was only possible again in 1986 with Willy Bogner's film Fire and Ice . Here Harold Faltermeyer provided the musical accompaniment.

In 1979, the FIS recognized freestyle skiing as an independent sport and developed a set of rules relating to jumping techniques. The primary goal of these efforts was the banishment of all injurious elements from the sport. The first world cup tour was staged in 1980 and the first world championships took place in 1986 in Tignes , France .

The Olympic Committee also paid tribute to the boom in freestyle skiing. At the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics , freestyle skiing was approved as a demonstration competition. At the next Games in Albertville in 1992 , moguls was part of the official Olympic program. In 1994 in Lillehammer the Aerials were also Olympic.

Originally, the disciplines aerials, moguls and acro belonged to the freestyle skiing defined by the FIS (DIT). Only later did the disciplines dual moguls, halfpipe, slopestyle and ski cross be added. Acro is no longer part of the program.

risk of injury

The very different freestyle techniques each require different training focuses. All are relatively dangerous. For a study, the participants of the Freestyle World Cups in 2006/2007/2008 and 2008/2009 were questioned about injuries (had to seek medical help) and the data were evaluated. There were a total of 291 acute injuries among 662 World Cup skiers. 93 (= 32% ). were "difficult" (= absence of training and / or competition for more than 28 days ). This was an average of 14 injuries per 100 athletes per season. Knee injuries were the most common (77 injuries = 27%) and of these 37 were "severe". The second most common was head injuries (39 = 13%). 106 injuries (= 36% ). happened in World Cup and World Championship competitions (= 15.6 injuries per 1000 starts ). There were no significant differences between men and women in either the incidence or types of injuries. These are relatively high values.

At the 2014 Winter Olympics , all injuries requiring medical attention were recorded. It was found that cross-country skiing was the least dangerous and had the highest accident rates in freestyle jumping (aerial) (48.8 injuries / 100), snowboard obstacle course style (slopestyle) (37.0 / 100), snowboard cross (34.4 / 100) ), Slopestyle skis (30.8 / 100), halfpipe skis (25.5 / 100), freestyle moguls (Moguls) (24.6 / 100), alpine skiing (20.7 / 100) and snowboarding Halfpipe (18.2 / 100) occurred.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Skicross is Olympic. ( Memento from December 16, 2009 in the web archive archive.today ). DSV. March 9, 2007.
  2. ^ Arnd Krüger : Freestyle skiing. In: competitive sport. 45, 2, 2015, pp. 28-29.
  3. ↑ TW Flørenes, S. Heir, L. Nordsletten and others: Injuries among World Cup freestyle skiers. In: Brit Journal Sports Med. 44 (11), 2010, pp. 803-880.
  4. ↑ T. Soligard, K. Steffen, D. Palmer-Green, M. Aubry, M.-E. Grant et al: Sports injuries and illnesses in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. In: British Journal of Sports Medicine. 49, 2015, pp. 441-447.

See also

Web links