Unlike the new Olympic events in curling, long track speed skating, and alpine skiing, the new big air event in Olympic snowboarding, which will debut at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, replaces an event from the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia that has since been dropped from the Winter Olympic program, parallel slalom snowboarding, although parallel giant slalom snowboarding will remain part of the Winter Olympic program. There will be separate big air events for men and women in Pyeongchang.
Big air snowboarding is the only new judged event in Pyeongchang, and, for those of you who are ski jumping fans, think of big air snowboarding as more similar to the aerials event in freestyle skiing than ski jumping, although there are some differences between big air snowboarding and freestyle skiing aerials beyond the obvious difference of big air snowboarding competitors using a snowboard instead of a pair of skiis. In big air snowboarding, the ramp is a single, monolithic ramp made from snow, is five meters wide, and is curved upward at the end of the ramp. Competitors in big air snowboarding perform a trick by launching off the ramp after going down an inrun located between the starting gate and the ramp, rotating their body in the air and/or grabbing the snowboard mid-air, and landing on their snowboard on the other side of the ramp from the starting gate.
There are a lot of grammatical errors in the official snowboarding judges' manual for the judged events in Olympic snowboarding, although I'll attempt to explain the judging criteria in the best way that I can. Four of the criteria that are used to determine scores in big air snowboarding are difficulty, execution, amplitude, and landing, and the acronym DEAL is a good mnemonic for remembering these criteria. Difficulty is a measure of how difficult a trick is, and factors such as number of rotations, total number of degrees rotated, difficulty of snowboard grabs, whether a rotation was a frontside rotation or a backside rotation, whether a take-off was a heel take-off or a toe take-off, and others are considered by the judges for determining a trick's difficulty; and more difficult tricks score higher points for the difficulty portion. Execution is a measure of whether the snowboarder maintained control of the trick from take-off to landing, and, if the snowboarder maintained less than full control of the trick, the snowboarder will receive less than the maximum possible number of points. Amplitude is not the easiest aspect of big air snowboarding for me to explain, although, from what I've read on the NBC Olympics website and the FIS website, I would guess that amplitude is a measure of jump height and how close the jump and trick was landed to a designated "sweet spot" for the particular jump. Landing is a measure of how well the snowboarder landed; for a snowboarder to get maximum landing points, he or she must fully complete the trick before landing, the snowboard must be the first thing to touch snow, the snowboarder must not land in the opposite direction that he or she was supposed to land, and there must not be any hand or body contact with the snow.
The Olympic format for each of the big air snowboarding competitions will consist of a qualification round, in which all entered snowboarders will perform two jumps, with competitors ranked based on their higher-scored jump. If the qualification round is not split into heats, the top 12 competitor from the qualification round advance to the final round; if the qualification round is split into heats, each competitor will be assigned to one of two heats, and the top six competitors from each of the two heats advance to the final round. In the final round, each competitor will perform three jumps, with each competitor ranked based on the combined score of their two best jumps. The highest score in the final round wins gold, the second-highest score in the final round wins silver, and the third-highest score in the final round wins bronze.
AUTHOR'S NOTE #1: This is the fourth blog post in a seven-part series, titled Road to Pyeongchang, previewing the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang County, South Korea.
AUTHOR'S NOTE #2: I incorrectly claimed in a previous blog post that a new event in freestyle skiing is going to be held in the 2018 Winter Olympics; in reality, there are no new events in freestyle skiing in the Winter Olympics. I apologize for the error, and the Road to Pyeongchang series will remain a seven-part series.
Big air snowboarding is the only new judged event in Pyeongchang, and, for those of you who are ski jumping fans, think of big air snowboarding as more similar to the aerials event in freestyle skiing than ski jumping, although there are some differences between big air snowboarding and freestyle skiing aerials beyond the obvious difference of big air snowboarding competitors using a snowboard instead of a pair of skiis. In big air snowboarding, the ramp is a single, monolithic ramp made from snow, is five meters wide, and is curved upward at the end of the ramp. Competitors in big air snowboarding perform a trick by launching off the ramp after going down an inrun located between the starting gate and the ramp, rotating their body in the air and/or grabbing the snowboard mid-air, and landing on their snowboard on the other side of the ramp from the starting gate.
There are a lot of grammatical errors in the official snowboarding judges' manual for the judged events in Olympic snowboarding, although I'll attempt to explain the judging criteria in the best way that I can. Four of the criteria that are used to determine scores in big air snowboarding are difficulty, execution, amplitude, and landing, and the acronym DEAL is a good mnemonic for remembering these criteria. Difficulty is a measure of how difficult a trick is, and factors such as number of rotations, total number of degrees rotated, difficulty of snowboard grabs, whether a rotation was a frontside rotation or a backside rotation, whether a take-off was a heel take-off or a toe take-off, and others are considered by the judges for determining a trick's difficulty; and more difficult tricks score higher points for the difficulty portion. Execution is a measure of whether the snowboarder maintained control of the trick from take-off to landing, and, if the snowboarder maintained less than full control of the trick, the snowboarder will receive less than the maximum possible number of points. Amplitude is not the easiest aspect of big air snowboarding for me to explain, although, from what I've read on the NBC Olympics website and the FIS website, I would guess that amplitude is a measure of jump height and how close the jump and trick was landed to a designated "sweet spot" for the particular jump. Landing is a measure of how well the snowboarder landed; for a snowboarder to get maximum landing points, he or she must fully complete the trick before landing, the snowboard must be the first thing to touch snow, the snowboarder must not land in the opposite direction that he or she was supposed to land, and there must not be any hand or body contact with the snow.
The Olympic format for each of the big air snowboarding competitions will consist of a qualification round, in which all entered snowboarders will perform two jumps, with competitors ranked based on their higher-scored jump. If the qualification round is not split into heats, the top 12 competitor from the qualification round advance to the final round; if the qualification round is split into heats, each competitor will be assigned to one of two heats, and the top six competitors from each of the two heats advance to the final round. In the final round, each competitor will perform three jumps, with each competitor ranked based on the combined score of their two best jumps. The highest score in the final round wins gold, the second-highest score in the final round wins silver, and the third-highest score in the final round wins bronze.
AUTHOR'S NOTE #1: This is the fourth blog post in a seven-part series, titled Road to Pyeongchang, previewing the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang County, South Korea.
AUTHOR'S NOTE #2: I incorrectly claimed in a previous blog post that a new event in freestyle skiing is going to be held in the 2018 Winter Olympics; in reality, there are no new events in freestyle skiing in the Winter Olympics. I apologize for the error, and the Road to Pyeongchang series will remain a seven-part series.
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