How are freeski tricks named and judged?

A ski trick name combines five parts: takeoff, direction, axis, degrees and grab. Chapter 17 of the Judges Handbook defines each one.

• Takeoff. Forward means the skier approaches in a basic stance. Switch means taking off backwards, looking over one shoulder.
• Direction of rotation. Leftside is a rotation to the skier's left, counterclockwise. Rightside is clockwise. After a switch takeoff they become switch leftside and switch rightside.
• Axis. Upright, cork, bio, misty, flatspin or a flip, explained further down.
• Degrees, cut to the first digit or two: left 5 is a leftside 540, switch right 9 a switch rightside 900.
• Grab, named last.

Put together, switch left dub 12 mute is a switch takeoff, a leftside double cork 1260 and a mute grab.

Skiers do not use frontside and backside. Snowboarders do, because on a board the direction depends on stance: a backside rotation is clockwise for a regular rider and counterclockwise for a goofy one (Handbook 16). On skis, left is left for everyone.

Every half turn is 180°. Off a forward takeoff on a slopestyle or big air kicker, a whole number of turns (360, 720, 1080) brings the skier down facing forwards, and every extra half turn lands them switch (Handbook 17, slopestyle tricks). A judge can check the degrees against the landing: forward takeoff plus switch landing means the spin ended on a half turn.

The Handbook's slopestyle list writes a 540 as "1 1/5 rotations" and a 900 as "2 1/5". That is a typo for one and a half and two and a half turns, since 540 ÷ 360 = 1.5.

Pipe walls are named from the skier's point of view, looking down the pipe (Handbook 15). A leftside spin down the pipe can only be done on the skier's right wall, and a rightside spin only on the left wall (Handbook 17).

The landing rule is reversed in the pipe. After a forward takeoff, down-the-pipe spins of 360, 720 and 1080 land backwards, and spins of 540, 900 and 1260 land forwards. A left 5 in the pipe comes down forwards, while the same left 5 on a kicker lands switch.

An alley-oop rotates up the pipe while the skier keeps travelling down it. The Handbook describes left alley-oops from the skier's left wall and right alley-oops from the right wall, and asks judges to look for both. Switch spins in the pipe start with a blind takeoff, which raises difficulty.

The axis is decided at takeoff, and chapter 17 tells judges what to watch for there. A cork is set to the skier's backside and tilts backwards without ever going fully inverted; cork 720 and cork 900 are the common ones. The Handbook warns that corked tricks "often add style, but not necessarily difficulty".

A double cork goes off-axis two separate times in one trick, a triple cork three times, and neither goes completely inverted. That is the difference between a dub and a double flip. The bio is corked forward, the mirror of a cork, and a bio that does go inverted can border on a misty. The misty itself is set to the front with one hand thrown across the body, flipping forward while spinning.

The D-spin, which the Handbook credits to Mike Douglas (CAN), is a heavily corked or inverted 720 set to the back. An under flip turns 180° into a front flip and lands backwards.

Handbook 8.1 says a grab must be made on the ski, never on the boot, the binding or the knee. A good grab is held through most of the trick, and a missed, weak or short one lowers the execution score. Boning or tweaking the grab shows extra control, and the free hand can help or hurt the style.

Chapter 17 lists close to 30 ski grabs without giving any of them a point value. It does compare a few: a critical is "typically considered to be easier" than a mute, a true tail is harder than a tail grab or inside tail, and the octograb is "one of the more difficult double grabs". Where the skier grabs and with which hand during the rotation also changes difficulty (8.2.1). A reverse or leading grab, with the hand reaching the way the skier spins, is a named variant of its own.

No. Handbook 8.2.1 says a larger amount of rotation "does not necessarily always increase the difficulty", and inverted or off-axis tricks are not automatically harder either. Judges weigh the five criteria of chapter 8 (execution, difficulty, amplitude, variety and progression) equally and in no particular order.

On skis, the Handbook lists these as raising difficulty:

• spinning every way: leftside, rightside, switch leftside, switch rightside and alley-oop, with clockwise and counterclockwise mixed in one run;
• counter rotations such as shifties and bring backs, up-slope rotations such as alley-oops, and more inverts (doubles, triples);
• blind landings, where the skier cannot see the landing in the last 180°;
• a grab held through the rotation, and harder grabs;
• in the halfpipe, hard tricks early or in the middle of the run.

The slopestyle part of chapter 17 adds that every skier has a direction that comes more naturally, so spinning both ways is considerably harder.

Poles matter as well. The Handbook records an agreement in the freeski community that poles should be mandatory at Level 1 and 2 events (it lists OWG, WC, WSC, WJC, CoC, UVS and YOG). A skier who competes there without poles is scored in the crash range.

Handbook 8.4.1 gives freeski judges their own checklist for variety:

• both directions of movement, forward and switch;
• all four directions of rotation: leftside, rightside, switch leftside and switch rightside;
• several axes: upright, off-axis, inverted, flatspin, rodeo, misty, bio, orbital, double cork and triple cork;
• in the halfpipe, down-the-pipe spins and alley-oop spins;
• a mix of different grabs on different tricks.

Repeats cost points. The Handbook says that a trick, grab or maneuver repeated in a run "should affect the score negatively". On the rails, variety means more than spinning both ways: lipslides, tails-over, blind takeoffs and landings, pretzels and switch-ups on different kinds of features (down rails, kinks, gap to rail, cannon rail).

On a rail the degrees count the turn onto the feature. In a straight on the skier approaches forwards and turns 90° to slide; a 270 on is three quarters of a turn, a 450 on one and a quarter, then 630 and 810 (Handbook 17).

A lipslide is ridden on an urban-style rail approached from the side: the skier turns away from the rail and brings the tails over it. A switch tails over is a switch ollie with a blind 90° onto the rail. A switch-up is a jump and turn on the rail (180, 360 or 540) that lands back on it, and in a surface switch-up the skis never leave the rail.

For difficulty, the Handbook singles out the pretzel, a rotation off the rail opposite to the one used to get on, and sliding with the rail far from the feet, as in a nose press or tail press.

A repeat cannot count towards the result. ICR 3502.3.1 and Handbook 9.5 require the two counting tricks to be different. If a skier lands the same type of trick twice or more in a phase, only the higher score counts and the lower ones are left out. If only two jumps are made in a phase, the highest single score counts.

What "the same type" means is settled at the team captains' meeting before the first training, and men and women may use different versions:

• Clockwise / Counterclockwise: the two rotation directions are separate types.
• 2 of 4 Directions: on skis the types are Right, Left, Switch Right and Switch Left.

In both versions, front and back flips are their own types until 180° or more of rotation is added, and straight airs are a separate type. When a skier attempts the same trick again, ICR 3703.4 lets the judges give that jump DNI. The big air skiing page shows the event itself.

Handbook 7 asks every judge to keep a permanent written record of scores and tricks for each competitor: the judge's name, the bib number, and the scores, tricks and execution for each run. The official score is the one on the judge's steno sheet. At Level 1 events with a data system, each judge's final score becomes official when the head judge approves it.

The sample sheet in Handbook 12 has a bib column, a wide steno column for the trick shorthand and a score scale running from 1-40 up to 90. The big air version adds an amplitude column.

Writing direction, axis, degrees and grab for every jump is what lets a judge apply the variety rule later in the phase. A note like "R dub 16 saf" next to bib 22 settles the question when the same skier comes back with a right 1440.

JudgeMate stores scores but not trick names. Judges enter a number for each criterion on each run, so the trick list stays on the paper steno sheet, which Handbook 7 makes the official record anyway.

• The Freeskiing category template uses the five Handbook criteria with weights: Difficulty 1.5, Execution 1.3, Amplitude 1.2, Variety 1.0 and Progression 1.0, with 3 runs and the best run counting. Handbook 8 weighs the criteria equally, so set every value in the Weight column to 1.0 if you want the template to match.
• The Big Air Skiing template suggests the sum of the 2 best of 3 jumps. JudgeMate does not check directions itself. When a skier repeats a direction, the judges mark the later jump DNI, which is available from the second run.
• If the repeat scores higher than the earlier jump, a DNI on the repeat would drop the better jump. When the repeat falls on jumps 2 and 3, the judges can give DNI to jump 2. DNI is not available on the first jump, so when the repeat falls on jumps 1 and 3, JudgeMate has no tool for that case and the head judge settles it from the steno sheets.

To set up a contest, create a freeski category. The freeskiing and halfpipe skiing pages cover the disciplines, and our FIS judging handbook guide explains the scoring systems.