Freestyle skiing has been a part of the Olympics since 1992, when mogul skiing was added at Albertville. In 1994, at the Lillehammer Olympics, the aerial competition was added (until I looked up this information, I had completely forgotten that there were back to back Winter Olympics when they made the switch over to every two years for the Summer and Winter Olympics).
Moguls, for those of you (like myself) who don’t ski, are basically big bumps and mounds of snow. It’s much harder to ski over these rough patches than down an ordinary hill. The mogul race is run down a mogul course that includes two jumps. The Olympic format consists of two runs, a qualifying run and a final run. The best time wins.
Aerial consists of a two-jump qualifier followed by a two-jump final. Now, by jumps, I don’t mean ski jumping where you fly off the end of a long slide and see how far you can go. No, this is aerial acrobatics. The athletes are limited to a maximum of three flips. What? Three flips?!? With skis on? Okay, then. The jumps are then scored on the take-off, execution, and landing. There is a difficulty factor that is figure in, as well.
I have to say this is one of the Olympic sports that I’ve never really paid attention to, but I think my kids would love it, and I’m looking forward to it, as well.
