The most creative freestyle sport

One of the winter sports, which was recently included in the Olympic program, is ski freestyle. The name derives from the merger of two English words - "free" and "style", hence, this sport discipline can also be called skiing freestyle.

A bit of history

The pioneers of this sport are brave skiers, who in the early sixties of the twentieth century surprised their eccentricities at the ski resorts in the Alps. What only they did not get up! The involuntary spectators of these tricks sometimes amused, and at times even drove into horror. Skiers were called only crazy or crazy (English crazy). And the question of why they are so risking their health and even their lives, fans of freestyle shortly answered: "Out of boredom." Then they did not even suspect that these "eccentrics" in the near future will not just be a common hobby or entertainment for extreme people, but they will grow into a new sport - freestyle. And if they had learned that in a few dozen years he would also become an Olympic discipline, then surely they would not have believed it.

Freestyle sport: development and distribution around the world

Later, similar skating became popular not only in European resorts, but also in the mountains of North America, Japan, the Himalayas. Every year the army of freestyle fans increased. Everyone tried to bring new elements and tricks into this style. The first freestyle competitions were not held in Europe - in the homeland of this sport, but in the mountains of the USA in 1971. Gradually formed three official sports disciplines: mogul, ski ballet (acrosking) and ski acrobatics. Since 1978, multi-stage competitions have been held in all of these types.

Freestyle - sport for extreme sports

With the development of this skiing all-around new disciplines. Along with the mogul, acroskings and ski acrobatics, new directions and styles have appeared: ski (aerial) acrobatics, ski-cross, slopestyle, havpipe, nyuskul and others. By the way, in 1999, acrosking left the official programs of the Olympic competitions. All these types demanded from athletes incredible dexterity, courage and bravado. After all, they are accompanied by a huge risk to health, being more than traumatic. However, the most important thing that freestylers should have been is originality. In short, this kind of sport - freestyle - has grouped around itself extraordinary personalities whose common goal was to surprise with their skill and ingenuity, and to compete with other talented sportsmen.

Freestyle - Olympic sport

By 1984, freestyle became popular all over the world. In the same year it was decided to include this sport, freestyle (photo in the article), in the Olympic program. Athletes from the USSR, USA, Norway, Canada, France, China, Australia and Russia competed for the first time at the Olympic Games in Sarajevo (Yugoslavia). The first freestyle champions were representatives of France and the United States. They won the mogul - skiing on a hillocky slope (250 meters), during which it was necessary to perform two original tricks. The next olympiad included acrobatic freestyle. Skiing is not the most comfortable sports projectile, with which you can perform complicated flips, jumps and stuff, but the performances of experienced athletes were so beautiful that they acted fascinating to a multi-million audience. After that, the army of freestyle lovers increased several times, and this sport was considered the most popular among winter species. At the next Olympiad in Calgary (Canada) in the competition for this sport was just a huge audience, which could be compared in numbers, except with fans of figure skating and hockey.

Features of ski acrobatics

Elements of acrobatics are present in various sports: jumping, sports and artistic gymnastics, etc. Ski acrobatics is considered a kind of such creative sports discipline, which is a relatively young sport of freestyle. Here, experienced athletes with a special springboard perform a series of two jumps, each of which is complicated in its own way. The jumps are of three types: triple, or large (slope 70 degrees, height 4 m 5 cm), double, or medium (slope 65 degrees, height - three and a half meters) and salty or small (slope 55 degrees, height 2 Meter and 10 cm). For a landing choose a mountain with a loose snow cover. How is the skill of athletes judged? Judges charge points for technicality in the distance from the springboard, the clarity of the flight path, the originality of the figure and the accuracy of the landing.

Other meanings of freestyle

As it was already noted earlier, this term comes from two English words and is literally translated as "free style". Therefore, they can be described as free style in other sports, as well as completely different phenomena. So, freestyle, in addition to what is a type of ski, it is also a kind of parachuting, the kind of skateboarding and motor sport, the ability to juggle a soccer ball, dancing to music with a dog and much more. This term is today called various sites, travel agencies, improvisations in rap, music direction. In Russia there was even in the nineties of the last century a very popular pop band called Freestyle.