What we know so far:
Curiously, we know one fact already for sure—there will be 44 athletes competing at the Olympic debut of freeriding, 22 women and 22 men, battling for a total of 12 medals in four events, freeride skiing and freeride snowboarding, both for men and women.
The 2030 Olympic Winter Games will be held in France from February 1 to February 17. The major host city will be Lyon while mountain related disciplines will be held in three regions in Haute-Savoie (La Clusaz & Le Grand-Bornand for Nordic & Biathlon), Savoie (Courchevel, La Plagne & Val d’Isére for Alpine Skiing & Sliding) and Hautes-Alpes (Serre Chevalier & Montgenévre for Freestyle Skiing & Snowboarding).
What we don’t know yet:
Despite the fact that we already know the exact number of athletes competing, we don’t know yet how many athletes will be competing exactly in which discipline. On the Freeride World Tour, we currently have different athlete counts in all four events: Snowboard Women, Snowboard Men, Ski Women & Ski Men. It’s likely that this will change and that we’ll rather see the same amount of athletes in all four disciplines, particularly an even split between men and women seems mandatory according to Olympic values, but no details have been communicated yet.
Of course, the amount of athletes per event will have implications for the qualification process. The procedure is something that remains totally in the dark for the time being, but the Freeride World Tour says on its website that details about the qualifying process shall be communicated towards the end of 2026. Due to the structure of the sport, the qualification needs to be completed before the Olympic season 2030 starts—don’t even dream of a freeride comp happening with suitable conditions in December. In other words, the major winter for qualification will be 2029 and the process may start already in 2028. That’s almost around the corner. Since freeriding tends to be a sport with limited access to the highest level of competitions, athletes with an Olympic ambition better see that they are in the right position—read: qualify for a Freeride World Tour starting spot in the coming winter—following this upcoming competition season.
Qualification might also be complicated since the Olympic principles ask for participation of all continents. Then, nations play a major role and therefore national Olympic committees will have their say, too. It’s likely that there will be a max amount of starters per country and that amount is likely not greater than two. However, you need to open up the qualification process for a number of athletes per country where likely those countries want to have their say on who is starting in the qualification. Combine that with the current shape of a FWT starter field and chances are that Olympic qualification will be held outside of the Freeride World Tour. We are curious on how that final scheme will look like but we bet it will stir a major controversy within the scene. Get your popcorn ready!
Finally, we haven’t heard anything about the potential venue. Val Thorens has entered the Freeride World Tour calendar two seasons ago with the perspective that it may act as the venue for an Olympic debut of the sport. However, after two years on the FWT the event still has to happen at the actually projected venue. Both in 2025 and 2026, the FWT stop was held at a different location—a different one in each year—due to avalanche and snow cover concerns at the designated face on Val Thorens’ Cime Caron. Whether that will affect the final decision for a venue remains to be seen. In an ideal world, the competition face would be chosen wherever the conditions in the French Alps will be best during the Olympic Games and similarly the competition day would be chosen according to conditions, but whether such flexibility is possible within the Olympic scheme is at least questionable.
What we’ll be definitely talking about in the years until the Olympics:
Of course, the main point remains: Should freeriding really be an Olympic sport? We don’t want to anticipate this right here, but expect some heated discussion. What remains a valid point: The status of being an Olympic discipline improves the situation of many athletes within the national sport structures and beyond when it comes to financial support, training facilities, medical treatment and social security. That cannot easily be disregarded. However, this will invariably come with a loss of freedom for these athletes once they decide to follow the Olympic path—and dealing with national ski federations can be a real downer. You might want to revisit our article about the merger of FWT with FIS in our book Ski Stories Volume 4 including many statements of prominent freeride athletes like Markus Eder, Arianna Tricomi or Drew Tabke.
Then, the qualification process and who should be starting at the Olympics will undoubtedly remain a topic until the first Olympic freeride champions have been crowned. Can we imagine that some riders may even boycott the Olympics like Terje Håkonsen did in 1998? What are the implications if someone won the Olympic premiere who hasn’t won any major event before and maybe won’t win anything major afterwards. That’s something that isn’t totally unlikely in events where conditions play such an important role.
Finally, is there risk for the sport as a whole, too? Looking back at last season, to have a good freeride competition isn’t all that easy. Chances are that conditions don’t align over the course of two weeks and what then? No Olympic competition or hold it in bad conditions and make the sport look bad? Granted, when thinking of recent years, athletes threw down amazingly even in less than favorable conditions, but in a freeride comp there are so many things that can go wrong. When it goes right like it did for surfing in the Summer Games of Paris—well, Tahiti—then it can be glorious. But does anybody remember the surfing back in Tokyo? There’s only one chance for a first impression and the 2030 Olympics will be the first impression of freeriding towards a global public.
It’s still a few years until 2030 and our sport has changed rapidly ever since it started. What is a bit strange, though, is to read about the history of freeriding on the FWT website and it claims the first Xtreme Verbier as a starting point. That’s not the first freeride competition, neither in snowboarding nor in skiing—for the latter by a huge margin. I don’t consider this to be overly important, but it just tells us that FWT and FIS have become a major communicator in our sport and that only grows with freeriding becoming an Olympic discipline. Then again, FWT and FIS are mainly communicating in their own interests—after all, they are economic enterprises as well—and it remains to be seen whether this will coincide with the interests of the majority of freeriders and snow sports enthusiasts. Be sure, we’ll keep an eye on this, too!
