The International Olympic Committee has decided to add three more events to the Olympic Winter Games in 2014 including slopestyle skiing, slopestyle snowboarding and snowboarding parallel slalom. The addition of events in snowboarding and freeskiing were cited by the USSA as being directly connected to what youth are doing worldwide today in the sport.
In April, the IOC had approved halfpipe skiing along with women’s ski jumping.
Slopestyle consists of a series of judged tricks down a long course of man-made features including rails, boxes and jumps. It’s an integral part of terrain parks at resorts worldwide with millions of youth already engaged in the sport both in skiing and snowboarding.
The addition of the three for both men and women brings the total of nine new medal events/genders added by the IOC this year for skiing and snowboarding under the International Ski Federation. The USSA played a key role with the FIS on the new freeskiing events of halfpipe and slopestyle, along with snowboarding slopestyle, giving skiing and snowboarding 50 percent of the Winter Olympic events.
“Slopestyle skiing and snowboarding are already bringing scale to our industry worldwide,” said the USSA’s Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer Andrew Judelson. “The IOC’s recognition of slopestyle is great for our sport and partners like The North Face in freeskiing and Burton in snowboarding who have also seen the youthful interest in the sports. We look forward to leveraging these new Olympic disciplines to engage consumers, drive growth and fund our athletes Olympic dreams.”
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