Park & Pipe Contest Director Roby Moresi on the Games and beyond

From the start of the FIS World Cup season through to the build-up to the Milano Cortina Olympic Winter Games, we have been publishing Q&As with Race and Contest Directors of each discipline to get their view on upcoming events.

The FIS Freeski and Snowboard Park & Pipe World Cup campaigns are on their Olympic break with just a few stops (two in Freeski, three in Snowboard) to come. A couple of weeks before the action gets underway in northern Italy, Park & Pipe Contest Director Roby Moresi gave his thoughts on the season so far and future developments in the discipline.

It’s been a thrilling World Cup season so far. Are there any athletes or storylines you’ve particularly enjoyed seeing play out so far?

Moresi: Scotty James’ (AUS) performances in Halfpipe have really stood out for me this season. Then there’s Eileen Gu (CHN) who’s back on top and pushing hard as she's going towards the Games, although I hope she hasn’t been pushing herself too hard especially after her crash at the Laax Open Slopestyle.

There are some good stories with young guns as well, whether that’s with Valentino Guseli (AUS) returning from injury to get two Halfpipe podiums so far this season, or Gaon Choi (KOR) leading the women’s Halfpipe World Cup with three wins in three starts after some tough seasons with injuries.

Nick Goepper’s (USA) rise to the top of the Freeski Halfpipe world has been a fun story over the past couple of seasons. Now he’s heading into his fourth Games, but his first as a Halfpipe skier, and that’s going to be fun to watch.

How exciting has it been to see the diversity of nations represented in Park & Pipe?

Moresi: Probably the biggest thing we've seen this season is the number of nations producing athletes that are in the mix at the top level. It’s not just a few, but it's many, many different nations that are coming from all over the world and making finals and earning podiums.

We’ve had 13 different nations represented on the Snowboard Park & Pipe podium so far, and 11 in Freeski. We’ve had podium athletes from China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and, of course, Europe and North America. Lots of nations participating and having good results is always good.

I don't think any other FIS discipline has the diversity of podiums that we have. It's all over the place, which is slightly more complicated when it comes to managing all these nations and these competitions, but I strongly believe that this is a good problem to have.

Given what you’ve seen this World Cup campaign, are there any changes we can expect for next season?

Moresi: One thing we're looking at is reducing slightly the field sizes in the men’s competitions, so that we can be a little bit more efficient in running the events at a high level. So we’re going to go down from 60 men to 50, which means restructuring a little bit how you qualify for World Cup events and the whole process.

Along with increasing the quality and efficiency of World Cup competitions, this will funnel athletes back to the Continental Cup a bit, and hopefully that will increase the quality of that level of events as well. We’re looking to focus more on quality of competition as opposed to quantity of participation at the top level, as it makes for better competition and also a bit simpler logistically for our organisers.

Livigno (ITA) hosts Park & Pipe events at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games. How satisfied are you with preparations in and around the venue?

Moresi: We have been in very close contact with everybody over there and I have been on site whenever possible this season to monitor progress. As things stand now, I haven't received too many complaints.

I know that the Halfpipe is very well built, and (Olympic Halfpipe shaper) Alli Zehetner is very happy with it. He's pushing forward with a really long pipe that should allow the best athletes to showcase their absolute best tricks.

Big Air is progressing quite well. They're nearly at their final stages of preparing the jump profile and the landing slope. Then all the safety features are set to be implemented very soon in time for training which begins on February 3. Big Air has been a big push because of the amount of snow required.

Slopestyle is well on its way to completion. Three sections are completed out of six, and the last three jumps have started to take shape, which is good. Compared to where we were 20 days ago, I think we're in a different world, in a really good way.

With broadcast rights coming in house to FIS next season, are there any planned innovations in terms of presentation and broadcasting of events?

Moresi: We are still in the development phase as we work through this major change, and we're going to have some meetings with all the various stakeholders after the 2025/26 season concludes.

I wouldn't know much more at this point, to be honest. We can probably expect to see something new next year as we as always expect to see something new, and ideally whatever we implement will enhance what we produce and how we showcase our sports, and give us more options and modernize our distribution models. I'm really not sure how that is going to look at this stage, but it’s going to be a very interesting shift.

Rails events will appear for the first time at the Junior World Championships in Calgary (CAN) in March. Tell us about the plans for FIS Rails/Street Style, and what you hope to see at the JWCs Calgary?

Moresi: What you're seeing moving forward with Rails, or Street Style, is definitely another interesting development to our group. We’ve already got three events with Halfpipe, Slopestyle, and Big Air, and it’s just taking a little bit of time for the next step with Rails because, before putting it out there, we want to really understand how we can showcase it the best without burning it out.

But slowly it’s making a debut within the various levels of events. We’ve already pushed it to European Cup level, and then we’ve got Junior World Championships in March. But to make sure it’s a strong TV product and push it to the mainstream, it will require some more exercise, so we're working through all the various details and processes and refinements, and we'll start to go through the process of bringing it to the FIS Board for World Cup approval for the 2027/28 season.

That gives us another year and a half before we actually get into major events, and hopefully from there we get approval for the Olympic Winter Games. If we can achieve that, then we give those athletes a chance to get to compete for medals in Slopestyle, Big Air and Rails, which would be quite amazing, actually.

Click here to read Nordic Combined Race Director Lasse Ottesen's thoughts ahead of the 2025/26 season.

Alpine Ski Race Directors Peter Gerdol and Markus Waldner look ahead to the Milano Cortina Olympic Winter Games.

Ski Cross Race Director Klaus Waldner looks to Winter Olympics