Freestyle Skiing Rules, Scoring & Competition Format — A Complete Guide

The basics

Judged sports use different criteria per discipline. Moguls: turns (60%), air (20%), speed (20%). Aerials: air/form (50%), landing (30%), degree of difficulty (20%). Slopestyle/Halfpipe: overall impression from judges on a 100-point scale.

Airborne Artistry: How Freestyle Skiing Rules Work at the Olympics

Freestyle skiing is the Winter Olympics’ most diverse discipline, encompassing everything from the balletic precision of moguls to the jaw-dropping rotations of aerials to the raw energy of ski cross. Governed by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), the sport’s events each have their own distinct scoring systems and rules, united only by skis and the willingness to go upside down.

Olympic Events

As of the most recent Winter Games, freestyle skiing features six events for each gender:

  • Moguls — skiing down a steep, bumpy course with two aerial jumps.
  • Aerials — launching off a kicker to perform acrobatic twisting and flipping maneuvers.
  • Ski Cross (SX) — four skiers race simultaneously down a course with jumps, rollers, and banked turns.
  • Halfpipe — performing tricks while riding the walls of a massive U-shaped snow feature.
  • Slopestyle — navigating a course of rails, jumps, and features while performing tricks.
  • Big Air — launching off a single massive jump to perform the most impressive trick possible. Added at Beijing 2022.

Moguls Scoring

Moguls uses a combined scoring system that evaluates three components:

  • Turns (60%) — judges assess the quality of the skier’s bump technique: absorption, carving, fall line, and consistency. Five judges score turns on a scale of 1–5, with the highest and lowest dropped.
  • Air (20%) — two jumps are performed on designated kickers. Each jump is scored for form, height, and difficulty using a base difficulty multiplier.
  • Speed (20%) — a pace time is set; skiers earn more points for going faster. The time score is calculated relative to this benchmark.

The final moguls score combines all three. At Beijing 2022, Walter Wallberg of Sweden shocked the field with a gold-medal score of 83.23, edging Japanese favorite Ikuma Horishima by just 0.27 points.

Aerials Scoring

Aerials scoring is purely technical:

  • Each jump has a Degree of Difficulty (DD) — for example, a full-full-full (triple-twisting triple backflip) carries a DD of approximately 5.0.
  • Five judges score air and form on a scale of 0–10, with the highest and lowest marks dropped.
  • The remaining three form scores are summed and multiplied by the DD.
  • The result is the jump score.

In Olympic competition, athletes perform two jumps in qualifying and two in finals. The finals typically use a knockout format where scores from each round determine advancement.

Ski Cross

Ski cross is the only freestyle event that doesn’t use judges — it’s a pure race. Four skiers start simultaneously from a gate and race down a course featuring jumps, berms, and rollers. The first two across the finish line advance to the next round, tournament-bracket style.

Contact is permitted but intentional interference — pulling, pushing, or deliberately blocking — results in disqualification upon video review. The distinction between incidental contact and foul play is one of the most debated gray areas in winter sports.

Halfpipe, Slopestyle, and Big Air

These three judged events share a similar scoring philosophy:

  • A panel of judges scores each run on a 0–100 scale based on overall impression, considering: amplitude (height), difficulty (trick complexity), variety (not repeating the same tricks), execution (clean landings, style), and progression (pushing the sport forward).
  • In halfpipe, athletes get two or three runs, with the best single run counting.
  • In slopestyle, athletes also get multiple runs with the best counting.
  • In big air, athletes get three jumps, with the best two scores added — but those two jumps must include different rotations or different axes, preventing athletes from repeating the same trick.

Eileen Gu’s big air gold at Beijing 2022 was clinched with a never-before-landed left double cork 1620 on her final attempt, scoring 94.50.

Equipment Rules

FIS mandates minimum ski lengths that vary by event. Moguls skis must be at least 180 cm for men. Helmets meeting FIS certification are mandatory in all events. In aerials, specialized boots and bindings with specific release settings are required to reduce injury risk during high-impact landings.

Rules topics

Common confusion

Why does moguls have a speed component if it's a judged event?
Moguls is unique among judged freestyle events in that 20% of the score comes from speed. This prevents skiers from going slowly and carefully to maximize turn scores. The speed time is compared against a pace benchmark — go faster than the pace and you earn more speed points. It ensures that competitive moguls rewards aggressive, dynamic skiing, not cautious perfection.
How is ski cross different from other freestyle events?
Ski cross is the only freestyle skiing event with no judges at all. Four athletes race head-to-head down a course with jumps and turns — first two across the finish line advance. It's a pure race, more similar to BMX racing than to halfpipe or slopestyle. The drama comes from close-quarters racing, crashes, and photo finishes.
In big air, why can't a skier just do the same trick three times?
FIS rules require that in big air, an athlete's best two scoring jumps (which are summed for the final score) must feature different rotations or different axes. If you do the same trick twice, only one counts toward your two-jump total. This rule rewards versatility and prevents the event from becoming repetitive.
What does 'degree of difficulty' mean in aerials?
Every acrobatic maneuver has a pre-assigned difficulty rating (DD). A simple back layout might be 2.0, while a full-full-full (three flips with three twists) is around 5.0. The judges' form scores are multiplied by the DD, so a perfectly executed easy trick scores lower than a well-executed hard trick. Athletes must declare their intended trick before jumping.
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