Recent FIS News

Below you will find a listing of recent FIS News

Find your news

Freestyle Skiing: New formats

After the development of the 2020 Vision Plan for the 2010 Autumn Meetings in Zurich, the Freestyle Skiing Committee continues to focus on making the five Freestyle Skiing events more interesting and easier to understand for the fans, through the competition formats.

The recent addition of ski halfpipe and ski slopestyle to the Olympic program has created another new focus for the Committee as it begins to prepare details of the courses and schedules for these new events. After agreeing the principles of a new format for moguls and aerials last spring, the details were worked out over the summer and after further refinements at the meeting, the Committee agreed to submit the new formats and competition system for the FIS World Cup, World Championships and Olympic Winter Games to the Council. The main changes occur in the final phases of the competition, where several rounds are held with smaller and smaller groups.

Joe Fitzgerald, FIS Freestyle Skiing Coordinator explained. "There will be a series of elimination rounds, where a decreasing number of competitors qualify to the next round. Finally, we end up with just the best four competitors, but because just three competitors will be on the podium, the last 10 minutes of the competition in the final round will be the most decisive. The emotions will increase run after run on the mogul slope, or jump after jump in aerials. The fans will see the best competitors ski another run or a jump again, and the competitors will need to try and improve on their performance from the previous round every time. It is head to head competition, with one competitor on the course at a time, similar to the format successfully used in Ski Jumping at the four hills tournament."

Contributed by Sofie Torlei Olsen

Back