Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympics are an event hosted every 4 years at various locations around the world. Skiing has been a part of the Winter Olympics from their very beginning, in 1924, however in the early years, the only forms of skiing that were present were nordic, ski jumping and downhill. In 1988, however, ski ballet and areial and mogul skiing were presented as demonstration sports. Then, in 1992, mogul skiing became an official Olympic sport, with ski ballet and areials still being present as demonstration sports. In 1994, ski ballet was dropped from the Olympics completely and areials became an official Olympic sport as well. From 1994-2006, the only freeskiing events were moguls and areials. In 2010, ski cross was added to the Olympics, and at the next Olympic Games in 2014, half-pipe and slopestyle skiing will be recognized as Olympic sports.
Dew Tour
The Dew Tour is a yearly extreme sports competition sponsored by Mountain Dew. It involves 3 stops over 3 months with a separate winner at each stop. It began in 2005, however it was not until 2008 that there was a winter sports Dew Tour. There are two ski events in the Dew Tour, slopestyle and halfpipe. The slopestyle event involves a course with a series of boxes and rails followed by three jumps. Competitors are judged based on the complexity of the tricks that they do as well as how cleanly they do them. The halfpipe comptition involves skiiers dropping into a formation that literally looks like half of a pipe laid out on the ground and then using their speed to propel themseleves up the sides to do tricks in the air. Like the slopestyle competition, the skiiers are judged based on the complexity and cleanliness of their tricks.
X-Games
The X-Games are an annual competition, held in Aspen, Colorado. They are sponsored by ESPN and feature a larger variety of events than the Dew Tour. Notable ski events in the X-Games are big air, slopestyle, halfpipe and ski cross. The slopestyle and halfpipe events are identical to the ones on the Dew Tour. The big air competition is a single large jump that skiier ride off and then preform tricks in the air. Much like halfpipe and slopestyle, the skiiers are judged based on the complexity of their tricks as well as how cleanly the land. Ski cross on the other hand is generally not considered a type of freeskiing. It involves skiiers racing down a course and trying to reach the end in the fastest time possible, much like alpine ski racing. What makes it different that alpine racing however is that there are jumps on the course that the skiiers race over which is why some people consider it a freeskiing variant, however they generally don't do tricks over the jumps and the only criteria for winning is to reach the bottom the fastest.
