Re-tuning their aerials to get a better reception

Aerial tricks in free skiing and snowboarding are becoming increasingly difficult and more dangerous, as athletes push technical boundaries ever further to stay competitive.

Riders say they need to be creative and more willing to take risks to land a medal at next month's Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy.

American free skier Colby Stevenson claimed a silver medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics by landing a trick he had never tried, even in practice.

Stevenson specializes in slopestyle and big air, two events that feature aerial twists, flips and spins that provide some of the biggest spectacles of the Winter Games.

Competitors in free skiing and snowboarding often adjust their runs at the last minute based on injuries, snow and weather conditions, or how their rivals have performed.

"That's how I won my silver medal,"Stevenson told reporters. "I tried a trick that had been on my mind for a couple of years and it went my way."

Athletes have been rolling out bigger spins, off-axis rotations and more inventive grabs, pushing judges to rethink how they score the sport.

With more riders attempting similar high-risk tricks, panels say they are placing greater weight on clean landings, control and height to distinguish standout runs, as the technical bar continues to rise.

This year's Olympic snowboarding and free skiing events will take place in Livigno, a resort town in the Italian Alps near the border with Switzerland.

Stealing the show

The list of inventive acrobatics and virtuosity is endless. On top of that, many Olympic competitors want to keep an element of surprise. "Yeah, tricks I'll keep a secret," said American free skier Alex Hall when asked about his plans.

Japanese snowboarder Murase Kokomo offered a possible preview in November when she became the first woman to land a backside triple cork 1620, a maneuver involving four-and-a-half rotations and three off-axis flips (corks).

She won bronze in Beijing in the big air competition, in which a snowboarder launches off a towering ramp and performs flips and twists in the air.

Rotations keep getting more difficult, with numbers at the end of a trick, signaling the degrees of the spin, rapidly rising. A year ago, Japanese snowboarder Hiroto Ogiwara and Italian skier Miro Tabanelli landed the first 2340s — six-and-a-half rotations in the air.

On the halfpipe, South Korea's Lee Chae-un completed the world's first triple cork 1620 during training in 2023.

Now, the triple cork appears to be a must-have trick for male snowboarders at Milano-Cortina.

For the women, twice gold medalist Chloe Kim of the United States was the only snowboarder performing a 1080(three spins) for years.

With competitors catching up, she has added a 1260 and other variations. Kim may need to deploy her toughest tricks if one of her rivals puts down a standout run, said NBC Sports analyst Todd Richards. It is unclear how a recent shoulder injury might affect her performance.

"Will we see someone do back-to-back double corks?" The former US Olympic snowboarder pondered. "Maybe that's Chloe. That would be a first."

Tricks getting scarier

Aside from the difficulty, snowboarders are judged on the creativity they demonstrate in stringing together various elements. Athletes often draw inspiration from skateboarding and other action sports.

"It gets harder and harder, with the tricks getting bigger and harder and all that, and more scary," said Red Gerard, a 2018 slopestyle gold medalist who has earned a spot on the 2026 US Olympic team. "It gets really hard to kind of keep that creativity happening."

Rising difficulty may also mean more injuries or falls, which could upend a competition.

"There's more opportunity for not as many runs to get landed," Gerard said."You have to go into it knowing it's going to be a fight, and there's going to be no easy part about it."

While a high difficulty trick may wow the judges, they are only part of the scoring equation. Marks are based on a combination of difficulty, execution, amplitude, variety and progression, defined as new tricks or innovative combinations.

Richards said the toughest feat in the halfpipe is to maintain height all the way down.

"One trick does not win you a gold medal," he added.

Reuters