How to fall in love with snowboarding? A guide to Olympic sports

Everyone is used to snowboarding being one of the winter fun activities with which you can have a good time with your friends. In fact, it is quite a complicated sport that you need to understand. We tell you what disciplines there are, reveal the terms – all so that you can immerse yourself in the culture and cheer for our team at the upcoming Olympics in Beijing.

International snowboarding judge and Olympic commentator

There are a huge number of people snowboarding all over the world right now. They keep progressing, doing new tricks. It’s just an interesting and exciting discipline for both teenagers and adults.

The first thing to know about

Snowboarding appeared in the program of the Olympic Games in 1998. Then in the Japanese city of Nagano two disciplines were played: halfpipe and parallel giant slalom.

Over time, the program has changed. Now the Olympic Games include the following snowboard disciplines:

• parallel giant slalom;
• big air;
• board cross;
• slopestyle;
• halfpipe.

The competitions are held at different venues and have their own rules. Fortunately, they have one thing in common: all disciplines are very entertaining and easy to understand. Alexey Potapov, international snowboarding judge, will help us.

Parallel giant slalom

Participants: men and women.

Basically, it is a race between two athletes. Two athletes need to start from the top of the mountain and race down two identical tracks that are next to each other: go around all the “gates” and come to the finish line. Whoever is first wins.

The competition consists of qualification, heats, 1/8 finals, 1/4 finals, 1/2 finals, minor and major finals.

At one Olympics (Sochi 2014) there was also a classic slalom. The distinctive feature of the giant one is larger distances between the gates and higher speed – as much as 19.5 meters per second.

Big Air

Participants: men and women.

One of the youngest snowboarding disciplines at the Olympic Games. The competition was first held in PyeongChang in 2018.

Big-Air – “big air” or “big flight”. So the essence is clear already from the name. Athletes will have to jump from a large springboard, perform a trick and land in the roll-out zone. The length of the span is about 15 meters, and this is a five-story house in height. No wonder big air is one of the most spectacular disciplines in snowboarding.

Athletes are given three qualification and three final attempts. Points are awarded for each attempt and trick performance. The obligatory condition is that at least two different tricks must be performed. The winner is determined by the sum of points of the two best attempts of each athlete.

Board-cross

Men, women and mixed teamsparticipate.

This discipline appeared in the Olympic Games in 2006. On a specially prepared track consisting of turns and jumps, a speed race takes place. Competitors start six at a time, and the winner is the one who first crosses the finish line.

Snowboarders will face qualifying heats, 1/8 finals, 1/4 finals, 1/2 finals, small finals and grand finals.

Slopestyle

Participating: men and women.

The format debuted in 2014 in Sochi. Slopestyle is a combination of the English “slope” and “style”. The athlete is sent on a course filled with various small jumps and shapes: ladders, walls, railings. All this in order to perform a series of acrobatic jumps-tricks.

Complexity, amplitude, landing are evaluated. Plus the general impression: how “cleanly” the tricks are performed, long or interesting paddles (grabbing the board with your hand) and the variety of tricks in the attempt.

In addition to aesthetics, an athlete needs to perform tricks cleanly for practical reasons. A dirty execution of the previous jump does not guarantee sufficient speed to perform the next one.

Halfpipe

Participants: men and women.

An old-timer discipline, introduced at the Games in 1998. Again, something is clear from the name: Half-pipe means “half pipe”. The competition is held on specially prepared terrain. It is a snow and ice chute, in other words, a half-pipe in section. The height of the walls is more than 3 meters, and the length is more than 80 meters. The structure is built on a mountain with a slope.

The athlete must accelerate from one wall, drive down and fly into the air from the other wall. Then do a trick and, having returned on the reverse trajectory, do the next one on the opposite wall.

Five tricks are counted, if a rider does six elements, the worst jump is not counted. Each rider has two attempts during qualification and three during the finals.

Who to watch out for?

Snowboarding is a fairly young sport in terms of the age of the competitors as well. Given its global popularity, the competition is getting higher and higher.

International snowboarding judge and Olympic commentator

The outcome of events at competitions is almost unpredictable. There are a lot of both young and experienced riders competing at the highest level. The best riders from all over the world are preparing for these Olympic Games. This is the crowning glory of the art of freestyle snowboarding. Something that will be talked about for a long time, something that will be remembered by both spectators and participants. I think all the attention will be focused on halfpipe, slopestyle, big air – as the main more youthful disciplines, which are interesting to watch and whose riders are in everyone’s Instagram followers. Everybody follows them. So the battle of the stars will be very interesting.

Vic Wild

Let’s go by specific names:

Absolutely pay attention to Shaun White from the USA. He has three gold medals to his credit in halfpipe and is aiming for a fourth.

Marcus Cleveland will be interesting to watch. The Norwegian has a top medal in big air and a silver medal in slopestyle at the last X-games.

Vlad Khadarin, a member of the Russian snowboarding team, will compete in big air and slopestyle. Our compatriot is now in good physical shape and is able to compete with famous athletes from all over the world.

Mark McMorris has long ago proved to everyone that he cannot be broken by any circumstances. The Canadian became the first in the slopestyle discipline at the X-games. And not just for fun, but because he was the first in the world to land a series of three of the most difficult tricks at the competition.

American-born RussianVic Wild will again compete for top medals, just as he did in 2014 at the Sochi Olympics.

Regarding the girls, Anna Gesser і Jamie Anderson will definitely be worthy of special attention as they will compete for the gold medal in slopestyle.

At these Games, Esther Ledecka will be defending not only her Alpine Super-G title, but also her snowboard title, and one of her competitors will be Ramona-Theresia Hofmeister, bronze medalist at the 2018 South Korean Games.

The women’s halfpipe promises to be as interesting, mesmerizing and roller coaster-like as possible, as far as the heart rate is concerned. Who can be singled out among the contenders for gold? Chloe Kim is the reigning world champion and X-Games champion. Chloe’s teammates are Maddie Mastro, Cai Xuetong – a nine-time Crystal Globe winner – and Liu Jiayu – a silver medalist at PyeongChang 2018.

Anna Gesser

Competition schedule

Infographic for those who are in a hurry