Event News

Your guide to freeskiing at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics

By: Ethan Stone February 09, 2018

The 2018 Winter Olympics have just kicked off in Pyeongchang, South Korea. once again, slopestyle and halfpipe skiers are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the world’s top winter athletes to represent their nations and hopefully, grab a bit of that Olympic glory for themselves.

If ski slopestyle and Ski halfpipe are events you can’t miss at this Olympics, we’ve got you covered here with all the important information: the course, athletes, and how to watch in Europe and North America.

THE SLOPESTYLE COURSE

The first images of the slopestyle course at Bokwang Pheonix Park ski resort have been coming in via social media, and it looks spectacular. With three creative rail tiers, followed by an equally creative set of three jump features, this course should help competitors show the sport at its top level. Let’s take a feature-by-feature walkthrough. (All images courtesy of Schneestern Instagram.)

THE SKIERS

A total of 103 skiers representing 21 different nations will be dropping into the Olympic slopestyle or halfpipe, from powerhouse freestyle nations like the U.S., Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand and the Scandinavian countries, as well as a few fun outliers like Robbie Franco, skiing slopestyle for Mexico, or Brendan Newby representing Ireland in the halfpipe.

 

Mens Slopestyle

Women’s Slopestyle

Men’s Halfpipe

Women’s Halfpipe

Australia

Russ Henshaw
   

Austria

 

Lara Wolf

Andreas Gohl

Marco Ladner

Lukas Müllauer

Elisabeth Gram

Canada

Alex Beaulieu-Marchand         

Alex Bellemare         

Teal Harle                

Evan McEachran

Dara Howell

Kim Lamarre

Yuki Tsubota

Simon D’Artois

Noah Bowman

Mike Riddle

Rosalind Groenewoud

Cassie Sharpe

Chile

 

Dominique Ohaco

  

China

  

Kong Xiangrui

Mao Bingqiang

Chai Hong         

Wu Meng

Zhang Kexin

Denmark

   

Laila Friis-Salling

Finland

Joona Kangas

Anni Kärävä

  

France

Antoine Adelisse

Benoit Buratti

Lou Barin

Tess Ledeux

Thomas Krief

Kevin Rolland

Anais Caradeux

Marie Martinod

Germany

 

Kea Kühnel

 

Sabrina Cakmakli

Hungary

   

Elizabeth Swaney

Ireland

  

Brendan Newby

 

Japan

   

Ayana Onozuka

Saori Suzuki   

Yurie Watabe

Mexico

Robert Franco

   

New Zealand

Jackson Wells             

Finn Bilious

 

Nico Porteous

Miguel Porteous

Byron Wells   

Beau-James Wells

Janina Kuzma   

Britt Hawes

Norway

Øystein Bråten      

Ferdinand Dahl

Felix Usterud

Christian Nummedal

Johanne Killi

Tiril S. Christiansen

  

Russia

 

Lana Prusakova

Anastasia Tatalina

Pavel Chupa

Valeriya Demidova

South Korea

 

Lee Mee-hyun

Lee Kang-bok

Jang Yu-jin

Sweden

Henrik Harlaut          

Oscar Wester          

Oliwer Magnusson    

Jesper Tjäder

Emma Dahlström

Jennie-Lee Burmansson

  

Switzerland

Elias Ambühl

Fabian Bösch

Jonas Hunziker

Andri Ragettli

Mathilde Gremaud

Sarah Höfflin

Robin Briguet

Joel Gisler

Rafael Kreienbühl

 

United Kingdom

Tyler Harding

James Woods

Isabel Atkin

Katie Summerhayes

Murran Buchan

Alexander Glavatsky-Yeadon

Peter Speight

Rowan Cheshire

Molly Summerhayes

United States

Gus Kenworthy

Nick Goepper

McRae Williams

Alex Hall

Maggie Voisin

Devin Logan

Caroline Claire

Darian Stevens

Torin Yater-Wallace

David Wise

Alex Ferreira

Aaron Blunck

Maddie Bowman

Brita Sigourney

Devin Logan

Annalisa Drew

Keep checking Downdays over the next week for full breakdowns on who to watch in each individual competition.

Forgot who won last time?

That's okay, it's easy to lose track. Here are the winners of ski slopestyle and halfpipe's Olympic debut four years ago at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. All of them except men's slopestyle gold-medal winner Joss Christensen (who's been fighting injuries) are competing in Pyeongchang.

 

Freeskiing Medalists - 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics

 

Mens Slope

Women’s Slope

Men’s Pipe

Women’s Pipe

Gold

Joss Christensen

Dara Howell

David Wise

Maddie Bowman

Silver

Gus Kenworthy

Devin Logan

Mike Riddle

Marie Martinod

Bronze

Nick Goepper

Kim Lamarre

Kevin Rolland

Ayana Onozuka

THE SCHEDULE

17 February: Women's Slopestyle Qualifications & Final
18 February: Men's Slopestyle Qualifications & Final
19 February: Women’s Halfpipe Qualifications
20 February: Women’s Halfpipe Final
20 February: Men's Halfpipe Qualifications
22 February: Men's Halfpipe Final

HOW TO WATCH

EUROPE: Eurosport has the Olympic broadcasting rights for most of Europe, and will be showing Oympic coverage on Eurosport 1 and 2, as well as coordinating with national channels country-to-country. Eurosport is pay TV in most countries, but the German broadcast can be watched free for anyone armed with a digital satellite receiver. If you want to pay to play, you can buy a subscription to the Eurosport Player, and watch all events live at Eurosport.com.

Eurosport schedule (all times CET)
17 February 01:00 - Women's Ski Slopestyle Qualifications
17 FebRuary 04:00 - Women’s Ski Slopestyle Finals
18 February 01:00 - Men’s Ski Slopestyle Qualifications
18 FEbruary 04:15 - Men’s Ski Slopestyle Finals
19 February 01:00 - Women's Halfpipe Qualifications
20 February 01:30 - Women’s halfpipe finals
20 February 04:00 - Men's halfpipe qualification
22 February 02:30 - Men's halfpipe finals

North America: NBC in the United States and CBC in Canada are handling Olympic TV broadcasting for our friends across the pond. All times EST.

NBC SCHEDULE
16 February - Women’s slopestyle, 11:56 p.m. (NBC, 12:35-2 a.m.)
18 February - Men’s slopestyle, 12:11 a.m. (NBC, 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 17-1:30 a.m. Feb. 18)
19 February - Women’s halfpipe, 9:18 p.m. (NBC, 8-11:30 p.m.)
21 February - Men’s halfpipe, 10:22 p.m. (NBC, 8-11 p.m.)

And of course, you can keep up with the Olympic action right here on Downdays, where we'll be providing you with in-depth competition previews, full results and analysis throughout the next weeks.

A few glimpses into Olympics World from athletes:

Last but certainly not least, here´s Cool Runnings, without which no Olympics is complete.