Freestylin'
Wow! What a crazy two weeks it's been since I posted last. Let's see if I can remember it all to recap.
Monday: Zoom was good. I switched to Mondays because C3 moved to Thursdays. We'll get to that a few days down the list. I am shocked at my swift progress. My running form is so improved in the 4 weeks since I started that I can now run 1.5 miles faster. That treadmill can go up to 9.5 mph now without me flying off into space. I'm pretty impressed with myself. That is until he told me that Olympic sprinters are usually running on this treadmill at 23-27 mph. What?!? That's ridiculous! I'm not even running half as fast as them. I mean, I knew I wasn't going to the World Championships anytime soon, but not even half? They'd be done with a whole lap, in the time it would take me to run half. Ridiculous. I felt a lot like Rich Eisen did in this video. Micah showed this to be this last year, and it makes me laugh every time. Thanks Mic!
Tuesday: GLOW with my life team girls was amazing. We started a new Bible study that is changing my perspective on serving others. Wow! And we only covered the first chapter. I can't wait until next week!
Wednesday: I got baptized along with 20 other people. It was a great experience. I've seen several of them again this week at church, and I know I've made some long lasting friendships. Thanks everyone for the congratulations.
Thursday: What a fabulous night of worship at C3 on it's new night! This is the Covenant College & Careers group I'm involved in at church. I love being with so many other young people to worship and grow in Christ. I'm just ballparking here, but I'd guess we had around 100 to 150 people there. Our group is growing!
Friday: I was going to gloss over Friday, but I just can't. Katy and I watched 2 documentaries that were classic public broadcasting gems. One on the World Hair Styling Championships and the other on synchronized swimming. We're still talking about them. We are huge fans of public programming "brought to us from viewers like you."
Saturday: I headed to Oklahoma City to see my KSU rowing girls in action. It was their first regatta of the year. Miss you girls tons! It's so strange being around the same people everyday for years and then suddenly to be without them. I loved seeing you all. Mom and Dad came down for the day too. I am so glad I got to spend the day with you both.
Sunday: After having breakfast with a roomful of senior citizens at the hotel (they were on a bus tour on their way back to New Mexico and myself and two elderly women had a lovely chat over waffles), I drove back home for the kick-off of my church's Elevate Conference. Awesome! I could write about it for hours and hours. We've been praying and fasting for 40 days to prepare for this new elevation we're going to. Pastor Mike has sent out a devotional every day. You can check them out at: 40 Days of Preparation. They are life changing. God is doing great things in me and around the world! I'm so excited to be a part of it all! That's were I've been every night this last week. I don't want to miss any of it.
Friday: (Monday to Thursday were awesome, life changing days at church. I don't know how next years Elevate Conference can get any better, but I know it will be.) I moved my session at Zoom to Friday. In case you've already forgotten the first paragraph of this post, I was really feeling good last Monday after my workout. I felt like I was starting to see some major progress, that is until 'The Beast' attacked me this week. It was bad. I mean horrifically bad. Vince pointed out the location of the nearest trash can, if that's any indication. Thank goodness I didn't have to use it, but there were some close calls. Normally, the sprints get shorter as you go, typically 8 to 15 seconds long as you near the end. Not this week. 8, count them, 8 thirty second sprints. Those were the longest 30 seconds... Pure agony. This was followed by 2 eight second sprints and 2 five second sprints.
Now, before these last few, Vince was trying to encourage me. I wasn't doing so hot at that point, sprawled on the ground, lungs and legs burning. "You're almost done. Only 5 more," he said. "2 eight second and 2 five second. Get up. Let's go."
And in my head, I was thinking, "This is going to be really bad. He won't even mention what the last one is." I kept this to myself until right before the last five second sprint. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know, but that last one must be something really horrible if you won't even tell me what it is."
"Oh, yeah. I picked up on that when you said 5 left," was my indignant retort as I hoisted myself back up on that treadmill. Apparently, the young children who have endless energy do not think this hard about how they'll survive the workout. Vince did tell me that he threw up during this workout, but he'd survived. That gave me some courage. The last one was a 30 second sprint, all out. It was a heinous way to end it all, but I made it through. Vince didn't let me fly off, and I got a 5 minute break afterwards. Heavenly reprieve! The rest of the workout wasn't that bad, but boy, that sprinting was terrible! It was like the first week all over again. Hopefully tomorrow's won't be as bad.
So, needless to say, I've been busy. I know I missed a week and this post is late, but I hope you'll still enjoy it. This is one of my favorite pictures of the bunch. It's hard to say that though because they were all so fun and creative. I was pretty proud of my apron turned ski bib getup. I couldn't find anything to serve as my second ski pole, so I guess I'm going to Swiffer my way down the mountain with one pole. Katy's bean bag served as my mogul for the evening.
If you haven't guessed it yet, our sport of the week is...
There are three Olympic freestyle skiing events for both men and women including aerials, moguls and ski cross events. Freestyle skiing originally began as a mix of alpine skiing and acrobatics, and the first freestyle skiing competition was held in Attitash, New Hampshire, in 1966. Freestyle skiing was affectionately known as ‘hotdogging’. What a great phrase! Can't you just hear the conversations on the hill that day. "Hey. What's Tom doing over there?" "Aw, he's just hotdogging." Hahaha. The name seemed to perfectly capture the breathtaking mix of acrobatic tricks, jumps and sheer adrenaline rush of the sport. Each event began to take it's place in the Olympic sports lineup. A relative newcomer to the Olympic Winter Games program, freestyle moguls became an Olympic medal discipline in 1992, at the Games in Albertville, France. Freestyle aerials were added for the Lillehammer 1994 Olympic Winter Games in Norway. Making its Olympic Winter Games debut in 2010 in Vancouver, Canada, ski cross is based on a simple concept: first across the finish line wins. And now the time has come when you shall learn of each discipline young padawan.
It was really hard to choose a picture for this section because they are all amazing. What it must be like to defy gravity like that? Here is my description of aerials: people who are going really fast launch themselves off a ramp and do as many acrobatic flips and twists as humanly possible and try to make it back to earth in one piece. That's just my point of view. If you have never see it, just click here. Ridiculous! I'll give you the specifics and a few more insights as we go.
Strategically, competitors determine their inrun location based on the type of jump performed, their own freestyle technique and the current environmental conditions. My take is that certain ramps are used for certain jumps. Perhaps they may always drift to a side or need a certain spotting location for landing, and the wind and snow conditions are definite factors. Correct inrun speed is critical to successful aerial performances and athletes can choose two of many different jumps that combine back flips and twists with differing degrees of difficulty. Athletes are judged on the quality of take off, height gained, form and body position, and how they maintain balance upon landing. All competitors complete two jumps in a qualification round. The 12 women and 16 men aerialists with the highest total scores from the qualification round move on to the final round. In the final round, competitors complete two more jumps in reverse order from the qualification results. The aerialist with the highest combined score from the two final jumps wins. This video covers a typical training day for US Olympian Ryan St. Onge. He missed out on a bronze medal by 2.6 points. Ouch! It's awesome to be the 4th best men's aerialist in the world, but to get 239.93 points and miss by such a small margin has got to be tough. Despite Ryan barely missing the podium, Jeret Peterson made a move up the world ranks to gain a silver medal for the US. Nice work Jeret!
I can feel you Ryan when you talk about stairs being the bane of your existence. I can distinctly remember 56 stairs up from the lake to our boathouse. You can count through the alphabet twice plus a few letters. I did that a lot the first year. There's just something truly heinous and wrong about having to carry a boat (and whoever tells you fiberglass is light is lying to you) up that many stairs after a really hard practice. You only thought your legs were tired from hours of rowing. Then you start climbing those 50+ stairs, and you realize just how tired you are. I think those stairs turned into an escalator going the wrong way on those days. You're physically moving, but it sure doesn't feel like you're going anywhere. I definitely counted down the days to my last trip up those stairs. At least we only had to climb them twice a day. These guys have to climb them 20 times a day in a wetsuit.Yuck!
It is crazy to think about how much athletes train for competition. Like Ryan said, you train for hours upon weeks upon months upon years for that little blip on the radar when you can compete. Training for four years at a time for a total of 8 seconds of Olympic competition. You have to believe that the cost is worth the reward to dedicate yourself to something like that. You have to be able to envision the end result, the purpose for your current pain. Your lifestyle is all about the training, not the competition. No one usually sees all the hard work that goes into preparation. No one's there to cheer for you on every practice run. People don't usually line up to get take your picture during practice. It's all about how much you want it. How much you want to succeed when the time for competition finally comes. There is this quote in front of the treadmill at Zoom that's become one of my all time favorites. It's so true in every area of life, not just sports.
Vince, I hear what you're saying, but it doesn't make the preparation any easier! I don't know a single, normal, sensible human being who likes practice everyday. It's just not natural. No one likes the painful process on the road to victory, but we know it's required to actually become victorious. Like I said, it's true, but not easy. On a lighter note, let's move on to our next event.
My definition: Go as fast as you can over moguls, do a jump and land a trick, go as fast as you can over more moguls, and land another great trick in the fastest amount of time possible. The more spectacular the jump the better, and don't ever (and I mean ever) let those knees come unglued. The announcers will replay it over and over, and the judges will deduct big time!
Now for the technical version:
Athletes choose which of the three to four different lines they will ski down on the mogul course. After the start signal, they ski down a steep slope and over a series of offset large bumps (moguls) as high as 1.2 meters (almost 4 feet!), spaced between three to four meters apart. There are two sets of ‘air bumps’, one near the top of the course, the other near the bottom, where the skiers are required to perform two different jumps of their own choice.
The goal is to ski down the course as fast as possible while performing the two jumps without technical errors or loss of balance. Different mogul jumps include the 360- to 1080-degree spins (Sarah, please tell me you said 1080 in the Nintendo 64 game voice!), loops (side flips), off axis jumps, back and front flips, and flips with twists. The jumps can incorporate different grabs or holds of the legs or skis. Going down the moguls, skiers need to keep their upper bodies facing straight down the hill while their lower body and skis are constantly turning. Maintaining snow contact with the skis is an important element.
All competitors participate in a qualification round. For both men's and women's events, the top 20 skiers from the round move into the final with the start list in reverse order of the qualification results. The five “turn” judges award points based on the quality of the skiers’ turns, making deductions for technical mistakes. The two “air” judges determine what jump was performed, how high they are off the jump, and the jump’s quality. Each run is timed and compared to a pace-time set for the course, with the fast skiers being awarded more points. The skier with the highest score in the final round wins.
Now let's learn a little more about the equipment necessary for each competitor. In moguls the turning control is essential; the color of the knee pad is often different from that of the ski suit. Here you can see the white knee pads stand out from the blue. This draws the judge's attention to the skier's expertise. It makes it easier for the judges to see if the skiers knees ever break apart, which can be a big deduction. Ski poles are used to aid the skier in accelerating, turning and maintaining balance. As you can guess, my one Swiffer ski pole would have been a problem. Skis can be any length. For mogul skiing, the average length is 185cm for men and 175cm for women (that's right around 6'). The helmet is made of hard plastic and used to protect the head and prevent potential head injuries in both aerials and moguls. Gotta protect your noggin!
I can remember how exciting this event was for the Vancouver games. Women's moguls was the highlight event of the first night of competition. Everyone thought that Jennifer Heil would be the first Canadian of the Games to bring home a gold. She was ranked #1 in the world coming in, but Hannah Kearney of the U.S. edged her out for the win. Another American, Shannon Bahrke, won the bronze. It was really exciting, but also kind of sad for Jen Heil. She was crying and feeling like she let her country down for being the 2nd best moguls skier in the world. So much pressure!
That honor would go to Alexandre Bilodeau on the second night of competition. He won the men's moguls in spectacular fashion and became the first Canadian EVER to win a gold medal on Canadian soil at a Canadian hosted games. I really liked Alexandre. He had a great story. In 2006, he finished 11th at the Torino Games and later in the world cup season became the youngest athlete in history to win a World Cup moguls event. Mighty impressive resume. But this wasn't what I was so impressed by, it was how much he loved his brother. Alexandre was an avid hockey player, but he switched to skiing so his brother could join him. That decision came shortly after Bilodeau saw Jean-Luc Brassard win Olympic gold in moguls at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehamer, Norway. So, he, only seven years old at the time, told his mom he would quit hockey if she let him try the moguls.
His older brother, Frédéric, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at a young age and told that he would be unable to walk by the time he was 12. Frédéric is now age 28 and still has the ability to walk. He was there in the stands to cheer Alexandre on. When Alexandre was a child, he often visited his brother Frédéric's school for children with special needs. The courage shown by his older brother and the students always left him awestruck. It inspired him to become a something great. He says that Frédéric and Jean-Luc Brassard are his heros. NBC did a special on Alexandre and Frédéric the night of the event. I'm a sucker for those spots by Mary Carillo and Bob Costas. So good! I couldn't find the clip, so here is a little view of Alexandre, know to family and friends as "Big Al".
Whoa! I hope John doesn't ever see this video! I'm truly grateful that we do not have a stairmaster at Zoom! Now, we'll move on to the last event encompassed in freestyle skiing.
The ski cross course, designed to test skiers’ skills, incorporates turns in a variety of types and sizes, flat sections and traverses, as well as rolls, banks and ridges similar to those found on a normal ski slope. Structures on the course resemble those found in snowboard cross events. Physical endurance and strength play a key role in ski cross as athletes ski four to five runs lasting 60 seconds or longer. This video shows some of the ridiculous circumstances of ski cross racing.
The first run is done alone. A timed qualification run is used to seed skiers into different heats, of four skiers each. At the sound of the starting device, the athlete begins racing down the course. The start, as well as the first sections before the first turn, are critical parts of the course, as passing can easily occur here. While other passing areas are designated on the course, interference with other skiers can lead to an athlete’s disqualification.
Each race is limited to four starters. The top half of the finishing field then moves on to the next round in a series of quarter, semi and final rounds. As you can tell, the number of races can add up really quickly. Skiers may compete in 4 runs in one day if they make it to the finals.
During each heat, the first two competitors to cross the finish line advance to the next heat, while the last two competitors are ranked based on qualification times. The “big final” round determines which athletes place first to fourth, while the “small final” determines those who rank from fifth to eighth place.
This was a great addition to the Winter Games lineup in my opinion. I approve of the X Games crossover. It was definitely a test of speed, strength, and athletic ability. I was sure glad I didn't have to be bumped and jostled like that while I tried to ski! I believe a lot of each race had to do with strategy, which makes it even more intriguing to me. Skiers know which lines are fastest, and they often must bide their time to cut in and steal the victory.
Well, young padawan, you have now learned the ways of freestyle skiing. Use this new found knowledge well. As your master, I will continue to teach of the ways of the Olympics in the near future. Have a great week!
Monday: Zoom was good. I switched to Mondays because C3 moved to Thursdays. We'll get to that a few days down the list. I am shocked at my swift progress. My running form is so improved in the 4 weeks since I started that I can now run 1.5 miles faster. That treadmill can go up to 9.5 mph now without me flying off into space. I'm pretty impressed with myself. That is until he told me that Olympic sprinters are usually running on this treadmill at 23-27 mph. What?!? That's ridiculous! I'm not even running half as fast as them. I mean, I knew I wasn't going to the World Championships anytime soon, but not even half? They'd be done with a whole lap, in the time it would take me to run half. Ridiculous. I felt a lot like Rich Eisen did in this video. Micah showed this to be this last year, and it makes me laugh every time. Thanks Mic!
Tuesday: GLOW with my life team girls was amazing. We started a new Bible study that is changing my perspective on serving others. Wow! And we only covered the first chapter. I can't wait until next week!
Wednesday: I got baptized along with 20 other people. It was a great experience. I've seen several of them again this week at church, and I know I've made some long lasting friendships. Thanks everyone for the congratulations.
Thursday: What a fabulous night of worship at C3 on it's new night! This is the Covenant College & Careers group I'm involved in at church. I love being with so many other young people to worship and grow in Christ. I'm just ballparking here, but I'd guess we had around 100 to 150 people there. Our group is growing!
Friday: I was going to gloss over Friday, but I just can't. Katy and I watched 2 documentaries that were classic public broadcasting gems. One on the World Hair Styling Championships and the other on synchronized swimming. We're still talking about them. We are huge fans of public programming "brought to us from viewers like you."
Saturday: I headed to Oklahoma City to see my KSU rowing girls in action. It was their first regatta of the year. Miss you girls tons! It's so strange being around the same people everyday for years and then suddenly to be without them. I loved seeing you all. Mom and Dad came down for the day too. I am so glad I got to spend the day with you both.
Sunday: After having breakfast with a roomful of senior citizens at the hotel (they were on a bus tour on their way back to New Mexico and myself and two elderly women had a lovely chat over waffles), I drove back home for the kick-off of my church's Elevate Conference. Awesome! I could write about it for hours and hours. We've been praying and fasting for 40 days to prepare for this new elevation we're going to. Pastor Mike has sent out a devotional every day. You can check them out at: 40 Days of Preparation. They are life changing. God is doing great things in me and around the world! I'm so excited to be a part of it all! That's were I've been every night this last week. I don't want to miss any of it.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and future." Jeremiah 29:11What a blessing to know God has a plan for me. We're all special to Him, and He made us each unique. I've been reading Psalm 20 a lot lately. In fact, it's hanging in my cubicle at work so I read it at least once a day. The chapter is all about God seeing your need and responding. Verse 4 is my favorite.
"May He give you the desires of your heart and make all your plans succeed."
Now, before these last few, Vince was trying to encourage me. I wasn't doing so hot at that point, sprawled on the ground, lungs and legs burning. "You're almost done. Only 5 more," he said. "2 eight second and 2 five second. Get up. Let's go."
And in my head, I was thinking, "This is going to be really bad. He won't even mention what the last one is." I kept this to myself until right before the last five second sprint. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know, but that last one must be something really horrible if you won't even tell me what it is."
"Oh, yeah. I picked up on that when you said 5 left," was my indignant retort as I hoisted myself back up on that treadmill. Apparently, the young children who have endless energy do not think this hard about how they'll survive the workout. Vince did tell me that he threw up during this workout, but he'd survived. That gave me some courage. The last one was a 30 second sprint, all out. It was a heinous way to end it all, but I made it through. Vince didn't let me fly off, and I got a 5 minute break afterwards. Heavenly reprieve! The rest of the workout wasn't that bad, but boy, that sprinting was terrible! It was like the first week all over again. Hopefully tomorrow's won't be as bad.
So, needless to say, I've been busy. I know I missed a week and this post is late, but I hope you'll still enjoy it. This is one of my favorite pictures of the bunch. It's hard to say that though because they were all so fun and creative. I was pretty proud of my apron turned ski bib getup. I couldn't find anything to serve as my second ski pole, so I guess I'm going to Swiffer my way down the mountain with one pole. Katy's bean bag served as my mogul for the evening.
If you haven't guessed it yet, our sport of the week is...
Freestyle Skiing
 |
| Day 2: Moguls! |
Aerials
I can feel you Ryan when you talk about stairs being the bane of your existence. I can distinctly remember 56 stairs up from the lake to our boathouse. You can count through the alphabet twice plus a few letters. I did that a lot the first year. There's just something truly heinous and wrong about having to carry a boat (and whoever tells you fiberglass is light is lying to you) up that many stairs after a really hard practice. You only thought your legs were tired from hours of rowing. Then you start climbing those 50+ stairs, and you realize just how tired you are. I think those stairs turned into an escalator going the wrong way on those days. You're physically moving, but it sure doesn't feel like you're going anywhere. I definitely counted down the days to my last trip up those stairs. At least we only had to climb them twice a day. These guys have to climb them 20 times a day in a wetsuit.Yuck!
It is crazy to think about how much athletes train for competition. Like Ryan said, you train for hours upon weeks upon months upon years for that little blip on the radar when you can compete. Training for four years at a time for a total of 8 seconds of Olympic competition. You have to believe that the cost is worth the reward to dedicate yourself to something like that. You have to be able to envision the end result, the purpose for your current pain. Your lifestyle is all about the training, not the competition. No one usually sees all the hard work that goes into preparation. No one's there to cheer for you on every practice run. People don't usually line up to get take your picture during practice. It's all about how much you want it. How much you want to succeed when the time for competition finally comes. There is this quote in front of the treadmill at Zoom that's become one of my all time favorites. It's so true in every area of life, not just sports.
Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win.
-Vince Lombardi
Moguls
Now for the technical version:
Athletes choose which of the three to four different lines they will ski down on the mogul course. After the start signal, they ski down a steep slope and over a series of offset large bumps (moguls) as high as 1.2 meters (almost 4 feet!), spaced between three to four meters apart. There are two sets of ‘air bumps’, one near the top of the course, the other near the bottom, where the skiers are required to perform two different jumps of their own choice.
The goal is to ski down the course as fast as possible while performing the two jumps without technical errors or loss of balance. Different mogul jumps include the 360- to 1080-degree spins (Sarah, please tell me you said 1080 in the Nintendo 64 game voice!), loops (side flips), off axis jumps, back and front flips, and flips with twists. The jumps can incorporate different grabs or holds of the legs or skis. Going down the moguls, skiers need to keep their upper bodies facing straight down the hill while their lower body and skis are constantly turning. Maintaining snow contact with the skis is an important element.
All competitors participate in a qualification round. For both men's and women's events, the top 20 skiers from the round move into the final with the start list in reverse order of the qualification results. The five “turn” judges award points based on the quality of the skiers’ turns, making deductions for technical mistakes. The two “air” judges determine what jump was performed, how high they are off the jump, and the jump’s quality. Each run is timed and compared to a pace-time set for the course, with the fast skiers being awarded more points. The skier with the highest score in the final round wins.
That honor would go to Alexandre Bilodeau on the second night of competition. He won the men's moguls in spectacular fashion and became the first Canadian EVER to win a gold medal on Canadian soil at a Canadian hosted games. I really liked Alexandre. He had a great story. In 2006, he finished 11th at the Torino Games and later in the world cup season became the youngest athlete in history to win a World Cup moguls event. Mighty impressive resume. But this wasn't what I was so impressed by, it was how much he loved his brother. Alexandre was an avid hockey player, but he switched to skiing so his brother could join him. That decision came shortly after Bilodeau saw Jean-Luc Brassard win Olympic gold in moguls at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehamer, Norway. So, he, only seven years old at the time, told his mom he would quit hockey if she let him try the moguls.
His older brother, Frédéric, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at a young age and told that he would be unable to walk by the time he was 12. Frédéric is now age 28 and still has the ability to walk. He was there in the stands to cheer Alexandre on. When Alexandre was a child, he often visited his brother Frédéric's school for children with special needs. The courage shown by his older brother and the students always left him awestruck. It inspired him to become a something great. He says that Frédéric and Jean-Luc Brassard are his heros. NBC did a special on Alexandre and Frédéric the night of the event. I'm a sucker for those spots by Mary Carillo and Bob Costas. So good! I couldn't find the clip, so here is a little view of Alexandre, know to family and friends as "Big Al".
Whoa! I hope John doesn't ever see this video! I'm truly grateful that we do not have a stairmaster at Zoom! Now, we'll move on to the last event encompassed in freestyle skiing.
Ski Cross
My description is much like the opening of this overview: a mass start of crazy fast skiers bump and jostle their way down the course. The first to make it across the finish line wins. The people who get bumped in mid-air often provide some dramatic falls and races, as you can see in the picture below.
Although new to the Olympic sport program, ski cross has existed as a sport since the early days of alpine skiing competition. The “mass start” appeal of ski cross, also seen in snowboard cross, sets the stage for fast and exciting competition. Not restricted by formal structures and formats, ski cross is part of the FIS freestyle discipline. The majority of competitors have an alpine skiing background.
The ski cross course, designed to test skiers’ skills, incorporates turns in a variety of types and sizes, flat sections and traverses, as well as rolls, banks and ridges similar to those found on a normal ski slope. Structures on the course resemble those found in snowboard cross events. Physical endurance and strength play a key role in ski cross as athletes ski four to five runs lasting 60 seconds or longer. This video shows some of the ridiculous circumstances of ski cross racing.
The first run is done alone. A timed qualification run is used to seed skiers into different heats, of four skiers each. At the sound of the starting device, the athlete begins racing down the course. The start, as well as the first sections before the first turn, are critical parts of the course, as passing can easily occur here. While other passing areas are designated on the course, interference with other skiers can lead to an athlete’s disqualification.Each race is limited to four starters. The top half of the finishing field then moves on to the next round in a series of quarter, semi and final rounds. As you can tell, the number of races can add up really quickly. Skiers may compete in 4 runs in one day if they make it to the finals.
During each heat, the first two competitors to cross the finish line advance to the next heat, while the last two competitors are ranked based on qualification times. The “big final” round determines which athletes place first to fourth, while the “small final” determines those who rank from fifth to eighth place.
This was a great addition to the Winter Games lineup in my opinion. I approve of the X Games crossover. It was definitely a test of speed, strength, and athletic ability. I was sure glad I didn't have to be bumped and jostled like that while I tried to ski! I believe a lot of each race had to do with strategy, which makes it even more intriguing to me. Skiers know which lines are fastest, and they often must bide their time to cut in and steal the victory.
Well, young padawan, you have now learned the ways of freestyle skiing. Use this new found knowledge well. As your master, I will continue to teach of the ways of the Olympics in the near future. Have a great week!