Freestyle skiing is a skiing discipline comprising aerials, moguls, cross, half-pipe, slopestyle and big air as part of the Winter Olympics. It can consist of a skier performing aerial flips and spins, and can include skiers sliding rails and boxes on their skis. It is also commonly referred to as freeskiing, jibbing, as well as many other names around the world.
Norway competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, United States. The nation enjoyed its best ever results in gold medals, most notably in the biathlon events, when Ole Einar Bjørndalen swept all four gold medals.
Sarah Jean Burke was a Canadian freestyle skier who was a pioneer of the superpipe event. She was a five-time Winter X Games gold medallist, and won the world championship in the halfpipe in 2005. She successfully lobbied the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to have the event added to the Olympic program for the 2014 Winter Olympics. She was considered a medal favourite in the event. Burke died following a training accident in Utah in 2012.
Grete Eliassen is an American-Norwegian freestyle skier. She won a bronze medal in Slopestyle at the 2011 Winter X Games XV in Aspen, Colorado, behind Kaya Turski and Keri Herman. She has won 6 medals at the Winter X Games in slopestyle and halfpipe events including back to back gold medals in 2005 and 2006. Eliassen serves as the 16th president of the Women's Sports Foundation, effective January 2017.
Rosalind Groenewoud is a Canadian freeskier. She is the 2011 FIS World Champion in halfpipe, Groenewoud is also a 2012 Winter X Games champion x 2 and has 3 silver and two bronze medals from X Games competitions in halfpipe. She won the AFP Overall Championship in 2009 & 2010 and AFP Halfpipe Overall Ranking in 2012. She is the first woman to design her own pro-model freestyle ski with the female owned ski company Coalition Snow.
Devin Marie Logan is an American freeskier from West Dover, Vermont. She won silver in Olympic slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympics held in Sochi.
Maddison Michelle "Maddie" Bowman is an American former freestyle skier. She won a silver medal in the superpipe at Winter X Games XVI in 2012.
Brita Sigourney is an American freestyle skier. She attended Santa Catalina School in Monterey, California, and later went on to attend the University of California, Davis, where she played water polo. She trained in her career as a freestyle skier in Park City, Utah. She won a silver medal in the superpipe at Winter X Games XV in 2011, followed with a bronze in 2012. She has competed in both the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics, finishing 6th in 2014. She won a bronze medal in the 2018 Olympics on February 19, 2018, with a score of 91.6, which she achieved on her third run. Up until her third run, the judges expressed to an NBC broadcaster of their approval of her form and amplitude but that she needed improvement with her creativity. She was good friends with her competitor Annalisa Drew and regretted bumping her off the podium. She won another bronze at the 2019 FIS World Championship in halfpipe.
Half-pipe skiing is the sport of riding snow skis on a half-pipe. Competitors perform a series of tricks while going down the pipe. The current world record for highest jump in a half-pipe is held by Joffrey Pollet-Villard, with 26 feet 3 inches. The sport is considered to be dangerous compared to other sports, and helmets are required to be worn during competitions. Half-pipe skiing has been part of the Winter X Games since 2002, and made its Olympic debut at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. David Wise of the United States of America became the first Olympic champion in this discipline with a total of 92.00 points.
Dara Howell is a Canadian freestyle skier. She was the first freestyle skier to win a gold medal in ski slopestyle at the inaugural event at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Howell has also won a bronze medal in women's slopestyle at the Winter X Games XVII in Aspen, Colorado, behind Tiril Sjåstad Christiansen and Kaya Turski.
Canada competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, from February 7 to 23, 2014. Canadians competed in every discipline except Nordic combined.
Ayana Onozuka is a Japanese freestyle skier. She won a bronze medal at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and the 2013 FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships.
James Woods is a British freestyle skier. He has won six medals at FIS World Cup and two medals at FIS World Championships
Chloe Kim is an American snowboarder. At the 2018 Winter Olympics, she became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding gold medal when she won gold in the women's snowboard halfpipe at 17 years old. She is a four-time X Games gold medalist and the first woman to win two gold medals in snowboarding at the Winter Youth Olympic Games. She is the current World, Olympic, Youth Olympic, and X Games champion in the halfpipe, and the first to win the title at all four major events.
Augustus Richard Kenworthy is a British-American freestyle skier, actor, and YouTuber. He competes in slopestyle, halfpipe and big air. Kenworthy won the silver medal in Men's slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. As of 2019, Kenworthy represents Great Britain. He was cast as Chet Clancy the ninth season of the series American Horror Story: 1984.
Emma Lonsdale is a freestyle skier who competes in the halfpipe. Her Olympics debut was at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, competing for Team GB.
Marie Martinod is a French freestyle skier. She won two silver medals in the halfpipe at the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics. She also won three medals in the superpipe event at the Winter X Games : one gold in 2017 and two bronze in 2006 and 2014.
Mirjam Jaeger is a former freestyle skier. Now she concentrates on her modeling and sports broadcaster career.
Katrien Aerts is a Belgian freestyle skiing athlete
Cassie Sharpe is a Canadian freestyle skier. Sharpe is the reigning Olympic champion in women's halfpipe after winning gold in Pyeongchang, South Korea at the 2018 Winter Olympics. She won a silver medal at the 2015 World Championships in halfpipe in Kreischberg and has won gold and bronze in superpipe at the Winter X Games in 2016 and 2018 respectively.
