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Sport Description
There are two disciplines of Freestyle Skiing; Aerials
and Moguls.
Mogul skiers ski down a field of moguls taking air twice
on the way down. They are scored on the form of their turns, the quality
and difficulty of their two aerial maneuvers and their speed.
Aerialists ski down a 20-25 degree in-run
at 45 m.p.h. and off of a 14 ft. tall kicker (jump) that is 70 degrees at
the top and looks like a quarter-pipe. The kicker launches us up to 60
feet in the air where we perform triple back flips with
up to five twists and quad back flips with up to four twists before landing on a
37 degree chopped snow landing hill.
We are scored 20% on takeoff, 50% on form and 30% on landing. A degree of
difficulty (DD) is then factored in for a total score.
Snow Sites
Snow aerial sites are usually built on a dirt foundation consisting of
an in-run, a flat area called the table and a landing hill. The spot
where the table meets the landing hill is called the knoll. After the
dirt foundation is covered with snow, jumps called kickers are built on
the table and made entirely of snow.
Wide landscaping rakes and levels are
used to level and smooth-out the flat area before the jumps and the
transition to the in-run.
Kickers
Kickers are built by blowing snow into wooden forms that are up to
17ft. tall.
If the snow is dry, precise amounts of water should be mixed in during
the blowing process to make the kickers hard enough to ski off but not
icy. After hardening, the forms are removed and the kickers are cut to
the proper height (up to 14-feet or 4.3-meters tall), taking into
account the amount that they are likely to shrink that week. The takeoff
point is then determined by measuring it’s horizontal distance from the
knoll. Then specific angles are marked on the side of the kicker
(usually in 2ft. increments) starting at the takeoff point and ending at
the table. Using the marks on the side of the kicker as a guide, a
skilled “shaper” then cuts the curve into the kicker by shaving off
multiple layers of snow using a razor sharp shovel or other shaping
devices including chain saws, hand saws and grizzlies (a tool used in
Quebec for removing ice).
Once the rough shape is established, the
kickers usually need to be “faced” because the snow is not firm enough
to last through a competition week. “Facing” begins by cutting a trench
in the face of the jump in the area that will be skied on. The trench is
then filled in and firmly packed with a precise mix of water and snow.
The rough shape on each side of the trench is used as a guide to cut the
final shape.
Landing Hill
The landing hill and knoll are chopped
several times before jumping starts. Hill Choppers begins at least ten
meters down from the estimated landing point and gradually work up the
hill to form a wall of un-chopped snow almost a meter tall. The most
efficient way to chop is to only take off an inch or two of the wall at
a time, maintaining the walls height until reaching the knoll, as
apposed to cutting off large chunks of the wall that must be chopped up
later. Cutting off large chunks also makes it difficult to ensure that
the hill is chopped at least 3/4 of a meter deep in all areas. Flat-end
shovels are much easier to use than pointed spade shovels because the
pointed shovels are pushed to one side or the other rather than
straight down
through the snow. Shovels should be sharpened to make the job easier but
only on the top side of the face. The bottom of the shovel must remain
flat or it will be directed away from the wall of snow and towards the
choppers shins rather than cutting through the wall. Hill choppers
should stay in line with each other and move up the hill at the same
pace to avoid skipping over parts of the hill.
Some parts of the hill are much firmer than others so if one person is
chopping faster than another, the faster person should widen their
chopping area in order to assist the other and stay in line.
Competition Week
In a typical winter competition week, we travel on Monday.
The day after travel-day is usually spent working on the site. We train for two to four days before competing. Training begins with
determining our starting point by skiing down the in-run and stopping
before hitting the jump. This is called a speed-check. A speed trap, handheld radar gun
or both check our speed. We then move our start point higher or lower
until the desired speed is attained before skiing off the jump. Single
flips are done at around 40kph, most doubles around 54kph. The first
triples of the day start out at around 62kph but can be as fast as 70kph,
although not usually on purpose. We're in the
air for about 3 seconds on triples. Quad flips have been done on snow by
only five people that I know of and in this order: Frank Bare, Lloyd Langlois, Eric Bergoust, Matt Chojnacki and Nicholas Fontaine. Top speeds
were probably not much more than 70kph.
On competition day we are only allowed
eight training jumps. We must do our two competition jumps during official
training sometime during the week of the event. The second round is
usually run in
reverse order of the results from the first round so the best go last and
both jumps count for a total score.
Summer Aerials (See
Also: How To)
Water Ramps are used to perfect tricks before doing
them on snow. We climb up to 150 stairs to the
top of the in-run, ski down a plastic surface then off of the same size
jumps used on snow and land in a swimming pool. A burst of air is sent up
from the bottom of the pool just before landing to soften the impact. We
wear a wet suit or a baggy suit with rubber seals on the wrists, ankles
and neck called a dry suit, normal ski boots, a life vest and a helmet.
Our skis are
reinforced with about ½cm of fiberglass to keep them from breaking on
impact.
We also train on trampolines, bungee
assisted spotting harnesses, diving boards and other acrobatic or
gymnastic training apparatuses.
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