Beijing 2022: Freeski big air and slopestyle preview
Feb 06, 2022·Freeski Park & Pipe
The Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games are udnerway, with the first freeski action coming in the form of women’s and men’s big air qualifications on Feb 7th.
You can find the full Beijing 2022 Freestyle Skiing programme HERE. Below we’ll take a look at what to expect from the Beijing 2022 big air and slopestyle competitions at what will be a unique - and no-doubt exciting - Olympic Winter Games in China.
THE VENUES
The slopestyle course in Genting Snow Park was revealed last week and it is, truly, a work of art, and doubtless one of the absolute best courses ever constructed. You can read our in-depth, top-to-bottom look at the venue HERE.
As for big air, we’re already familiar with the stunning Big Air Shougang set-up in Beijing city’s Shijingshan district, where the world’s first and only permanent big air structure sits amongst the monolithic cooling towers that stand testament to the area’s steel-smelting past.
Standing 60m high and some 160m long, with an adjustable tabletop distance of 20-27m (likely to be closer to 22m for Olympic competition), the Shougang jump is inarguably the best man-made big air venue ever seen, and the level of riding seen on it two years ago at the Air + Style World Cup competition that christened the jump was simply incredible.
With such a facility set to host the competition and with the boundary-shattering level of progression we’ve seen in recent months in the lead-up to the Games, the Olympic debut of freeski big air should put the event on the world’s radar in a big way in the coming days.
In fact, it seems almost a given that never-been-done tricks will go down and history will be made during Beijing 2022 big air and slopestyle events. While all Olympic competition is must-watch TV, the Beijing 2022 freeski competitions are shaping up to be extra-must-watch, if such a thing could exist.
THE ATHLETES - Women
PyeongChang 2018 women’s slopestyle podium
GOLD - Sarah Hoefflin (SUI)
SILVER - Mathilde Gremaud (SUI)
BRONZE - Isabel Atkin (GBR)
For those of you just tuning in, we’ll ask you to go search the name Eileen Gu (CHN) and do a little reading before proceeding.
Done? Up to speed? Back with us?
Cool.
Heralded by many as the “face of the Beijing 2022 Games,” 18-year-old Gu has quickly become one of the absolute biggest stars in winter sports, as the U.S.-born representative of the People’s Republic of China has emerged over the past 24 months as the sport’s purest triple threat - a favourite to take gold in all three of big air, slopestyle and halfpipe.
In the 2021/22 season Gu has podiums in all seven competitions she’s entered, including a historic four halfpipe wins in four competitions to sweep the World Cup season series and claim the crystal globe.
She’s also the reigning slopestyle World Champion after her win at Aspen 2021 last March, and though she’s yet to claim a slopestyle win this season, close runner-up finishes at the Mammoth Mountain (USA) World Cup and at the Dew Tour show that she’s very much within striking distance.
Throw in her first major international big air competition win at Steamboat (USA) in December and Gu’s hopes for a big medal haul at Beijing 2022 are looking very, very good, indeed.
Gu’s biggest obstacle to Beijing 2022 gold in slopestyle and big air is likely to be Tess Leduex of France - the 2017 slopestyle World Champion, 2019 big air World Champion, last season’s slopestyle crystal globe winner, and the X Games gold medallist in both big air and slopestyle from just a couple of weeks ago.
Stylish, technical, progressive and cool under pressure, Ledeux is the full package, and in her past 10 World Cup competitions the 20-year-old has only missed the podium once. After her dominant performance at this season’s X Games - where she become the first woman ever to land a double cork 1620 to take the big air win - there’s every reason to expect her to continue that form through Beijing 2022.
One skier both Gu and Ledeux will be looking over their shoulders for will be Kelly Sildaru, the Estonian star who missed out on the PyeongChang 2018 Games due to a knee injury.
Like Gu, Sildaru excels in all three freeski events, with World Cup and X Games podiums across the board, including multiple wins in both slopestyle and halfpipe, and a halfpipe World Championships gold medal from Utah 2019.
While she’s yet to drop in on a big air competition this season, Sildaru has won both the slopestyle World Cups she’s entered, including the Mammoth event when she bested Gu in impressive fashion.
All of this being said and we still haven’t got to the reigning gold and silver medallists from PyeongChang 2018 - Sarah Hoefflin and Mathilde Gremaud, respectively.
It’s been a weird year for Hoefflin, with illnesses, crashes, and bad luck seeming to great her at every turn lately - most recently at X Games where she had to pull out of all competitions due to the lingering effects of a fall. Still, she managed runner-up podiums at both the Chur big air and the Stubai slopestyle World Cups earlier in the season, and if she’s feeling healthy she remains one of the world’s absolute best.
As for Gremaud, it’s kind of been the same story, with crashes and competition withdrawals dotting her season and only one World Cup start thus far this season - a sixth-place finish at the Stubai slopestyle.
However, she did manage to grab slopestyle silver at X Games two weeks ago, putting herself right back into the podium conversation ahead of Beijing 2022.
Another to watch out for on the women’s side of big air and slopestyle includes the reigning big air World Champion Tatalina Anastasia (ROC), who made history on her way to that gold medal last season by becoming the first women to spin both left and right side double cork 1260s in the same competition.
The list of potential contenders goes on and on - Maggie Voisin and Marin Hamill of the USA, Canada’s Olivia Asselin and Elena Gaskell, Joanne Killi of Norway, Kirsty Muir representing Great Britain…
THE ATHLETES - Men
PyeongChang 2018 men’s slopestyle podium
GOLD - Oystein Braaten (NOR)
SILVER - Nick Goepper (USA)
BRONZE - Alex Beaulieu-Marchand (CAN)
The biggest news leading up to Beijing 2022 big air and slopestyle competition on the men’s side of things has been the triumphant return to competition of reigning slopestyle World Champion Andri Ragettli (SUI) after suffering a serious knee injury at the end of last season.
The 23-year-old dropped in on his first competition in 10 months at the Font Romeu slopestyle in mid-January and promptly took a FIS Freeski World Cup record-breaking ninth win, before following that up immediately after by taking top spot at the X Games slopestyle contest, announcing that not only is he back, he might be better than ever.
While no one has been a more consistent podium performer than Ragettli since he earned his first World Cup top-3 back in the 2014/15 season, he’s going to be coming up against a whole army of skiers who have also shown they’ve got what it takes to win on the right day in the insanely competitive world of men’s slopestyle and big air.
The top of the men’s field is deep and heavy, with a far-ranging mix of styles and approaches to both slopestyle and big air skiing and easily 15 skiers capable of earning a W at the biggest competition of their lifetime.
Perhaps no one on the men’s side of things (aside from Ragettli) comes into Beijing 2022 competition riding more of a high than Alex Hall (USA), who grabbed big air runner-up in Steamboat, then won the Mammoth slopestyle, before going on to claim three medals at the X Games - including the big air win.
Hall leads a phenomenal USA team that includes last season’s double crystal globe winner Colby Stevenson, a past slopestyle crystal globe winner in Mac Forehand, and the two-time Olympic medallist and still-elite veteran Nick Goepper - each and every one of whom is a podium threat in both slope and big air.
You could, however, say the same thing for a handful of nations.
The Canadians are fielding Evan McEachran, Teal Harle, Max Moffat and Edouard Therriault; the Norwegians have Birk Ruud, Christian Nummedal, Ferdinand Dahl and Tormod Frostad; Oliwer Magnusson, Jesper Tjader, Hugo Burvall and Henrik Harlaut are representing the Swedes…
New Zealand? Ben Barclay and Finn Bilous. Spain? Thibault Magnin and Javier Lliso. Austria? The not-so-secret weapon Matej Svancer, who might just be the most exciting freakier in the world right now.
Honestly, from top to bottom of the big air and slopesrtyle Beijing 2022 start lists there’s almost no one who you can’t imagine having at least an outside shot at the podium if the stars align.
Long story short - don’t miss any of this. Women and men, big air and slopestyle, it’s all going to be out of this world.
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