Petition to get freestyle skiing out of the olympics?

[Skibumsmith]

Let me start by saying that I haven't been alive long enough to know first hand what skiing was like in the 70s and 80s but I have seen Hot Dog the movie. Mogul skiing used to be all about hot doggin - the original newschool. And it was fucking cool. The kind of cool that people try to emulate when they wear pit vipers. In 1992 in was introduced as an olympic event. Fast forward to today and moguls are about as cool as racing. Special coaching, ski academies and FIS sanctioned events - moguls are for nerds. In 1998 snowboard halfpipe became an olympic event and newschool skiers began petitioning to have an equivalent event included in the games. They had no idea of the repercussions that would come about when FIS determines what scores well in a 'freestyle' event. But they just had to look to the history of mogul skiing. If only they had the foresight.

Is park skiing destined for the same outcome as mogul skiing? You can already see evidence of changing tides. This isn't an opinion piece. This is meant to be thought provoking and to start a discussion. Do we need to take newschool skiing out of the olympics in order to save it?

 

[Bended_Toenail]

Lets just all start mogul skiing so that becomes cool again

 

[jprene8]

Hmm interesting point and I see what you’re saying like look how popular pipe skiing was and the popularity of it now compared to the early 2000’s. But at the same time a large part of it could be viewer fatigue and just things going out of fashion especially if it’s kinda niche and the demographic that was there early on grows out of it and there isn’t a group of younger people there to take up the mantle. It’s a interesting thought and conversation tho.

 

[edai]

you should check out the mayrand podcast on spotify/applemusic, he does an episode with michael kingsbury (mogul skier) that is pretty eye opening, guy is honestly a huge chiller

 

[broken_skier0]

Hmm interesting point and I see what you’re saying like look how popular pipe skiing was and the popularity of it now compared to the early 2000’s.

Olympic size halfpipes take a shit ton of snow, are expensive to cut and maintain, and takes a ton of real estate on the mountain. When a single feature can eat up $300k out of your park budget, it's amazing we ever had as many halfpipes as we did.

**This post was edited on Jan 21st 2021 at 1:27:30am

 

[Chunderface]

Moguls are low key super core.

 

[abar.]

Is park skiing destined for the same outcome as mogul skiing? [/quote]

Yes.

At least competing in park skiing (at all levels, even kids at your home resort) is 100% on the path to becoming exactly like racing culturally in 10 years. Unorganized park skiing for fun will always be what it is tho

 

[TOAST.]

I'll only watch large comps if the course looks like it will produce unique lines. Ussasausauus or whatever comps are really lame. Small local comps are still cool.

Dont get me wrong what people are doing today in slope runs is insane, it is just stale to me.

 

[brownetown]

I mean yeah I’d usually agree that freestyle skiing should get taken out to avoid the fallout of mogul skiing (and even snowboarding to some extent?) but comps are one of the best ways for athletes to get recognized on a larger scene and to get paid the money that our sport needs. Like yeah I’m sure most of those guys competing are already sponsored but the money from winning must be pretty nice still

 

[asparagus]

I think that FIS is hurting the sport waaay more than the olympics.

FIS pros: they give prize money (i think)

Cons: forces skiers to spend their whole budget travelling all year to collect points instead of filming

Gets almost no media attention to grow the sport

Almost only benifits comp jocks like android ragettli who spend all their time competing

All their rules and regulations make the sport more boring like moguls

Olympics pros: Huge media coverage and grows the sport

Dope course

Normalizes freestyle skiing (people don't think it's just a subcategory of moguls)

Cons: forces people to attend fis events to collect points

Makes kids and parents think that freestyle skiing is all about competitions

Makes parents push their kids to be comp jocks to get to the olympics

(but at least it gets more kids into freestyle skiing)

I think that the real thing killing the sport is the fact that it's impossible to film or tour while competing because you have to collect these stupid points to get places. I'm pretty sure that henrik doesn't need to prove that he's the best big air skier by racking up a billion fis points. And we know that Colby Stevensen would be a better pick for slope than some kid who has a ton of fis points because he placed fifth at 50 events.

TL;DR

The olympics are cool, fis sucks

 

[johnblaze]

Let me start by saying that I haven't been alive long enough to know first hand what skiing was like in the 70s and 80s but I have seen Hot Dog the movie. Mogul skiing used to be all about hot doggin - the original newschool. And it was fucking cool. The kind of cool that people try to emulate when they wear pit vipers. In 1992 in was introduced as an olympic event. Fast forward to today and moguls are about as cool as racing. Special coaching, ski academies and FIS sanctioned events - moguls are for nerds. In 1998 snowboard halfpipe became an olympic event and newschool skiers began petitioning to have an equivalent event included in the games. They had no idea of the repercussions that would come about when FIS determines what scores well in a 'freestyle' event. But they just had to look to the history of mogul skiing. If only they had the foresight.

Is park skiing destined for the same outcome as mogul skiing? You can already see evidence of changing tides. This isn't an opinion piece. This is meant to be thought provoking and to start a discussion. Do we need to take newschool skiing out of the olympics in order to save it?

Park skiing isn't a sport!! Get it outa there!

 

[asparagus]

Park skiing isn't a sport!! Get it outa there!

Why can't park skiing be a sport and an art. Look at skateboarding, they introduced comps for those who wanted it, but there's no such thing as a comp skater. They qualify through video parts and train by doing their trick on film. Skating can co-exist with comps, so why can't skiing?

 

[abar.]

Why can't park skiing be a sport and an art. Look at skateboarding, they introduced comps for those who wanted it, but there's no such thing as a comp skater. They qualify through video parts and train by doing their trick on film. Skating can co-exist with comps, so why can't skiing?

FIS

 

[jprene8]

Don’t get me wrong I know that and completely agree with you the budget it takes to build a maintain a pipe, super pipe especially is immense. So that is obviously a very big reason but I think there has been some amount of fatigue regardless of losing pipes.

Olympic size halfpipes take a shit ton of snow, are expensive to cut and maintain, and takes a ton of real estate on the mountain. When a single feature can eat up $300k out of your park budget, it's amazing we ever had as many halfpipes as we did.

**This post was edited on Jan 21st 2021 at 1:27:30am

 

[katrina]

Maybe instead of awarding FIS points at contests we could hide them around mountains and urban spots, like a scavenger hunt. Like king of the road. But for skiing.

 

[DominatorJacques]

Let me start by saying that I haven't been alive long enough to know first hand what skiing was like in the 70s and 80s but I have seen Hot Dog the movie. Mogul skiing used to be all about hot doggin - the original newschool. And it was fucking cool. The kind of cool that people try to emulate when they wear pit vipers. In 1992 in was introduced as an olympic event. Fast forward to today and moguls are about as cool as racing. Special coaching, ski academies and FIS sanctioned events - moguls are for nerds. In 1998 snowboard halfpipe became an olympic event and newschool skiers began petitioning to have an equivalent event included in the games. They had no idea of the repercussions that would come about when FIS determines what scores well in a 'freestyle' event. But they just had to look to the history of mogul skiing. If only they had the foresight.

Is park skiing destined for the same outcome as mogul skiing? You can already see evidence of changing tides. This isn't an opinion piece. This is meant to be thought provoking and to start a discussion. Do we need to take newschool skiing out of the olympics in order to save it?

Don't worry about the FIS. Just ski the way you like, and have fun.

What the heck does FIS have to do with anything anyway.

If someone competes in an FIS freestyle event, that is their choice. That choice is something earned, not given.

Respect Gets Respect.

 

[galardogod]

I mean, at first we all tuned in to watch the same dub 10 mute , now we tune in for the same trip 14 mute, comp skiing is just repetitive because of scoring. There is no real reward for variation. Guys like Henrick have tried time and time again. I think that a lot of guys have folded on the comp scene and most have more fun just skiing and filming anyway. At a younger level park skiing is 100% heading towards racing if not already there. Watching a USASA event full of academy kids is brutal.

 

[broken_skier0]

Mogul courses didn't die because of FIS. Mogul courses died because when terrain parks came on the scene, they longer had a reason to exist. In the pre-terrain park days, mogul courses were how you got air on the mountain. Terrain parks made it possible to get air without being a high level mogul skier first.

 

[xonskier78]

Why can't park skiing be a sport and an art. Look at skateboarding, they introduced comps for those who wanted it, but there's no such thing as a comp skater. They qualify through video parts and train by doing their trick on film. Skating can co-exist with comps, so why can't skiing?

Cause skiing is nowadays a industry just watch all the 10 year old kids training at the mountain with their team. Dont get me wrong its dope to see those kids but in my opinion the real spirit of skiing, having fun and a dope time together is going under.

 

[Knapzach]

Moguls are low key super core.

Only if you were to do your run butt naked like Shane

 

[soup]

Skiings already dead. Our only hope is to keep it in the olympics, get some juiced up Chinese kid into the podium, and then money will come back to the sport.

 

[-Dan]

Too many homies doing exactly what they want on skis right now for it to be dead. I’d say we had the downturn and bottomed out in a few ways around 2015-17. Since then it seems core skiers are more tapped into supporting core brands and with that, the money come back around.

I know I had a real wake up call when HG decided to stop making skis. So as long as I have the ability to I will be supporting core brands who support the skiing I love. I’ll also keep trying my best with Arsenic to do the same.

I think that attitude will maintain where we are at as a community and hopefully grow opportunities for the skier that deserve as well as grow the audience for the skiing we are doing. Real street is a great platform we have right now. Instagram has its downsides but I think a lot of us are tired of how it has been used so far and there feels like some shift there for the better. YouTube is great and I see a lot more edits coming out now.

olympics happen, and it’s great for the people that wanna do that. Give future Joss’s and Oystein’s more gold medals, those guys are fucking awesome. And they are filming in the streets this year too. A few years down the road and I can’t remember what they did in their runs, but check in a few years from now and I promise I know what clips they put out from this season where there weren’t major competitions taking up so much time.

nice lil rant here, but the point is- skiing is in a great place as far as the community is concerned. Just need to make sure there will be snow in the future and the rest will play out wonderfully.