Men's and women's snowboarding made their Olympic debuts at Nagano Games in 1998 with Alpine and freestyle competitions.
Men's and women's snowboarding made their Olympic debuts at Nagano Games in 1998 with Alpine and freestyle competitions.
The parallel giant slalom events appeared on the Salt Lake City Olympic program for the first time, replacing the two giant slalom events that were contested in Nagano.
A total of ten snowboarding events will be held at Sochi 2014 which will include parallel slalom, parallel giant slalom, snowboard cross, half-pipe, and the new event of slopestyle.
Slopestyle snowboarding and parallel special slalom snowboarding were added to the 2014 Winter Olympics in an attempt to attract younger fans.
The half-pipe competition takes place in a bowl-shaped course dug deep into the hill. Using speed gained on the slope, snowboarders come up over the rim of the pipe and perform acrobatic aerial tricks. The object of the half-pipe is to perform difficult tricks with perfect form.
The parallel giant slalom features head-to-head matches on the mountain. After the qualification round, a 16-person tournament is established and athletes compete under the knock-out system on two side-by-side courses until there is a winner.
The Boarder-cross event is held on a challenging route including jumps, bumps, berms and other obstacles. The heats consist of four riders who start at the same time, with the best two in the finish proceeding to the next round (where the athlete with the best time in the previous round goes first). Finally, the four fastest snowboarders make the final and compete for medals.
The goal of slopestyle is to perform the most difficult tricks while getting the highest amplitude off of jumps, with an emphasis on performing different types of tricks instead of doing one great trick repeatedly.
Parallel special slalom snowboarding is said to be trickier than giant slalom because of its tighter flag spacings. This is a race between two competitors who must maneuver more closely spaced flags than on a giant slalom course, which is usually also a longer one.
The X-treme Park “Rosa Khutor” is created to the west of Rosa Khutor Plateau for Olympic snowboarding events in Sochi.
