(PYEONGCHANG 2018 STORIES TO WATCH)
(FREESTYLE SKIING)
Freestyle skiing made its debut as a medal sport at the
1992 Olympics in Albertville, with moguls.
Aerials became a medal event in 1994,
followed by ski cross in 2010,
then half-pipe and slopestyle events in 2014.
The events reflect the Olympic push towards more modern events
with younger athletes who set trends
as surely as they wreck gravity.
There are five events each for men and women
in freestyle skiing at PyeongChang 2018.
Aerial skiers take jumps that propel them
six metres into the air, where they perform twists
and flips that can be singles, doubles or triples.
Judges grade elements of form, landing and air performance
in take-off height and landing to determine the final tally.
Mogul skiers take runs on 250 metre courses
dimpled by snow mounds set 3.5 metres apart.
The final scores reward speed, turns and jumps.
The ski cross pits four athletes per event
in a 1,000 metre race down a course that features
banks, spines, rollers and jumps.
Collisions sometimes occur as skiers
aiming for the top of the podium must get to the
bottom of the course as quickly as possible.
The ski half-pipe is similar to the snowboard half-pipe,
but instead performed on skis.
Athletes perform spins and jumps with a maximum score
of 100 for excellent height, technique and difficulty.
Ski slopestyle takes place on a veritable obstacle course
that includes rails, tables, boxes, walls and jumps.
The highest of two runs per skier
determines the final ranking.
In PyeongChang, freestyle ski events
will take place at the Phoenix Snow Park.
Snowboarding events will also take place
at that park facility.
Do you know which sport freestyle skier Jeremy Bloom
was drafted to in 2006?
Find out at the end.
(BRITTENY COX, AUS)
The reigning world champion in moguls,
Britteny Cox, hails from Wodonga,
a town of 38,000 people that is home to
the world's largest rolling pin,
located on top of a local bakery.
At 15, Britteny was the youngest athlete to
compete at Vancouver 2010
and the second-youngest ever to represent Australia.
She still has the note that her mother wrote,
asking for permission to be absent from school for a month.
She comes from a family of mogul skiers
and was Australia's first woman to win a medal
in a World Cup mogul event.
(QI GUANGPU & XU MENGTAO, CHN)
Xu Mengtao has won medals at the last five
World Championships in women's aerials,
including gold in 2013.
Qi Guangpu has won medals
at the last four World Championships
in men's aerials, including golds in 2013 and 2015.
Mengtao lives and trains in Ufa, Russia.
She won the test event at the Olympic venue under
windy conditions a year before PyeongChang 2018.
While there, she planted a seed in the ground to bring her
luck at the Olympics.
Guangpu's friends and family make him
a cake with the Olympic rings on it for each birthday.
(OLYMPIC MEDALS)
For the all-time medal count in freestyle skiing,
we have Switzerland in fifth place with three golds.
Belarus come in fourth with six total medals.
Australia, third place with seven total medals.
Canada's in second with eight gold.
And the USA is on top with eight gold and a total of 21.
(MARIE MARTINOD, FRA)
At 33, Marie Martinod will be one of the oldest contenders
in an Olympic freestyle skiing event.
A mother, Marie won a silver medal in the
ski half-pipe at Sochi 2014.
She will be heading to PyeongChang
in hopes of winning.
You can't decide to win, but you can decide to ski well.
You can decide to train as much as you can
to be able to fix everything together and be ready.
Marie learned to ski soon after she could walk.
Her grandfather put her on skis at two.
Her mother was a ski teacher
and her father was a snowcat driver.
At 22, Marie quit competitive skiing for six years
and owned a nightclub in La Plagne.
She resumed competitions in 2011.
(GUS KENWORTHY, USA)
Gus Kenworthy won a silver medal as part of the
USA sweep in slopestyle at Sochi 2014.
He also competes in the half-pipe event.
Gus was born in Chelmsford in the UK.
His father, Peter, was working in London when he met Pip,
his future wife.
After the Sochi Games, Gus stayed behind for a month
so he could adopt a family of stray dogs.
Gus took a year off from high school to ski
and graduated a year after the rest of his original class.
Gus spends hours on the trampoline in his spare time.
Did you know? In 2002 at the Olympic Winter Games
in Salt Lake City, aerial skier Alisa Camplin
won gold for Australia.
It was Australia's second Winter Olympic gold medal.
Steven Bradbury won gold for Australia two days earlier
in the short track.
(JEAN FREDERIC CHAPUIS, FRA)
Jean Frederic Chapuis won ski cross gold
at Sochi 2014 after winning the World Championship in 2013.
In 2016 he clenched the overall World Cup title
by winning a competition in Pyeongchang.
Jean Frederic was an alpine skier
before switching to ski cross at the age of 20 in 2009.
At the time he competed for Switzerland,
the birth country of his mother
and he is still a dual citizen.
Jean Frederic enjoys playing practical jokes
on his team-mates and coaches
who know him simply as Jean Fred.
Will he go back-to-back and win gold in PyeongChang?
So do you know which sport freestyle skier Jeremy Bloom
was drafted to in 2006?
It was football, American football, and the NFL.
Moguls get underway on opening ceremony day.
The finals follow quickly after.
Aerials also gets going in week one.
It's sure to be an exciting two weeks for freestyle skiing.
They have the aerials finals at the beginning of week two.
Also in week two, we get underway with the half-pipe
followed by ski cross.
The Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang
is set to begin February 9th.
Fill your knowledge tank by watching other episodes
on Olympic Channel.
(PYEONGCHANG 2018 WWW.OLYMPICCHANNEL.COM)