This Winter Olympic Sports Breakdown series will take a look at everything you need to know about some of the sports this winter including how they are scored, accounts you should follow for each sport, and who is expected to win! In this article, we will be talking all about skiing AND snowboarding!
What It Is
Skiing uses a pair of skis for each foot while snowboarding is a single snowboard attached to both feet. While both of these may seem pretty self-explanatory what isn’t is how many variations of the sports take place at the Olympics. We’re going to break down the events that take place in both snowboarding and skiing and what they are.
Skiing:
Alpine Skiing:
Alpine Skiing consists of downhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom, super combined and mixed team. Alpine skiing is when athletes slide down slopes with their skis over a long distance.
Freestyle Skiing:
Freestyle Skiing consists of aerials, moguls, ski cross, ski halfpipe and ski slopestyle. This style of skiing uses more “tricks” than alpine skiing. Athletes go down a short slope and launch off a ramp where they perform different tricks such as flips and twists.
Snowboarding:
Snowboarding consists of events such as parallel giant slalom, halfpipe, snowboard cross, big air and slopestyle.
Here are examples of skiing and snowboarding:
How It’s Scored
Alpine skiing is scored based on the best time out of the two runs that athletes are given. Certain events in alpine skiing have “gates” which are just two plastic poles that skiers must go through. If they fail to go through a gate they are disqualified.
Freestyle skiing is scored by adding together the air, form and landing scores. They then multiply that number by the jump’s degree of difficulty. The maximum possible score for a jump is 150.
Snowboarding is scored very similarly to how freestyle skiing is scored. Judges give a score from 0 to 100 based on the overall performance and how well the athlete executed the jumps.
Who Will Win?
Since there are so many events in both snowboarding and skiing, it is hard to pick the favorites for each as a whole. Definitely keep your eye out for Shaun White in snowboarding as he competes in his last Olympics!
Stay Up To Date
Follow these accounts to stay up to date on all things skiing and snowboarding during the 2022 Winter Olympics.
View this profile on Instagram
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Some Olympic sports can be confusing but we hope this helps make your time watching more enjoyable!
