Slopestyle and Big Air are two popular freestyle snowboarding events that showcase athletes’ creativity and technical skills. They emphasize high-flying tricks and technical creativity.
Slopestyle
In Slopestyle, riders perform a series of tricks on a course that includes a mix of rails, jumps, boxes, and other obstacles arranged down the slope. Each obstacle presents an opportunity for riders to display technical skills, variety, and creativity in their choice of tricks. Judges score based on factors like difficulty, amplitude, execution, and style as athletes navigate multiple features in one run. Slopestyle courses require versatility, as riders must land tricks on a range of features, transitioning smoothly from one to the next while maintaining flow and style. This event is featured in both the Winter X Games and the Winter Olympics.
Big Air
Big Air is where riders launch off a single massive jump, where riders focus on executing their best aerial trick with maximum amplitude and style. Unlike slopestyle, big air allows snowboarders to concentrate on a single, highly technical trick, often involving multiple rotations and flips. Judges score on the trick's difficulty, height, rotation, style, and execution, including landing precision, emphasizing the scale and precision of each maneuver. Big Air showcases a rider’s ability to perform complex aerial maneuvers and push the limits of progression in freestyle snowboarding.
