Olympic official says slopestyle is too dangerous for Olympics

pussy they will never do it

So now you guys care about the Olympics?, just a while back you guys were talking about all of the negatives.

pussy.

Most of the sports in the winter olympics are dangerous. Just take Georgia's accident into consideration, and I still see skeleton in the olympics..

I don't really even know if i like slope in the olympics. Don't want to sound like T-Hall here but it sorta shows the dueche bag side of our sport, it makes it way too mainstream. It's forcing the progression , not letting it happen naturally on its own and just sorta killed all the vibes surrounding it.

ApenflexorSo now you guys care about the Olympics?, just a while back you guys were talking about all of the negatives.

I think the concern is that instead of removing slope from the olympics if it truly is too dangerous, they will shape it into something shitty like competition moguls or aerials with regulations. To be honest I think ti would be cool if slopestyle got kicked out of the olympics for being too dangerous haha

ZachAndCheeseI don't really even know if i like slope in the olympics. Don't want to sound like T-Hall here but it sorta shows the dueche bag side of our sport, it makes it way too mainstream. It's forcing the progression , not letting it happen naturally on its own and just sorta killed all the vibes surrounding it.

How much progression happened just for the sake of the olympics? If anything I think the Xgames big air pushed progression much further than the olympics. The whole dub and triple bandwagon really spawned from that contest in 2010 on.

What douche bag side of the sport?

Also as much as some people might want the sport to go back to being underground, the parks everyone rides wouldn't be as legit without it. Everyone has a park these days and a lot of places have pretty damn legit ones.

Okay, first of all, the Olympic Ski Slope final was amazing. The jumps were huge and great for the world's best Slope skiers to throw huge tricks. But, it also was so big that any mistake could take down any rider. That is what the X and Red's have been pushing for, an unsustainable high risk sport. The expiration dates on athletes is stunningly quick. The Olympic Safety Dudes are right. Slope and Pipe are dare devil crazy air shows that are amazing to watch but are insanely dangerous. The courses and rules are NOT going to make more people try the sport. It is like aerials, only a few will attempt the sport at it's current Olympic level. The Freeski has evolved into an unsustainable form of Jumping that has serious long term consequences for anyone absorbing all the consistent impacts. Yes I am amazed by the acrobatics, but I could care less if I ever see half the tricks performed in competitive Slope and Pipe again. I like skiing better than multiple spinny flippy air. The B&E Invitational Course looks way more fun and demands much more actual ski talent than FIS Competitive Slope and Pipe.

So, Olympics can do whatever it wants and I truly don't care. But, I'd love to see competitive Slope and Pipe create high level comps with restrictions. Why do we have to progress the sport to a level that puts the risk factor up to unsustainable? We don't have to. X and Red like balls to the wall risk, I don't. I would rather see mandatory coping tricks in pipe, then the current "boost till ya bust" format. I love the B&E ideas in Slope. More flowy courses where speed is limited and features demand ski skills and creative vision. My full respect to all the Athletes who helped to "progress" the sport to this incredible Olympic high level. However, we should change the direction of the competitive sport for the benefit of the athletes future health and to make the sport attainable to more skiers. But, will Red X be able to sell it if it's less risky? Who knows? But the athletes will compete wherever there is prize money and they will adapt.

Another Stumpa ramble.... I'm out.

StumpaOkay, first of all, the Olympic Ski Slope final was amazing. The jumps were huge and great for the world's best Slope skiers to throw huge tricks. But, it also was so big that any mistake could take down any rider. That is what the X and Red's have been pushing for, an unsustainable high risk sport. The expiration dates on athletes is stunningly quick. The Olympic Safety Dudes are right. Slope and Pipe are dare devil crazy air shows that are amazing to watch but are insanely dangerous. The courses and rules are NOT going to make more people try the sport. It is like aerials, only a few will attempt the sport at it's current Olympic level. The Freeski has evolved into an unsustainable form of Jumping that has serious long term consequences for anyone absorbing all the consistent impacts. Yes I am amazed by the acrobatics, but I could care less if I ever see half the tricks performed in competitive Slope and Pipe again. I like skiing better than multiple spinny flippy air. The B&E Invitational Course looks way more fun and demands much more actual ski talent than FIS Competitive Slope and Pipe.

So, Olympics can do whatever it wants and I truly don't care. But, I'd love to see competitive Slope and Pipe create high level comps with restrictions. Why do we have to progress the sport to a level that puts the risk factor up to unsustainable? We don't have to. X and Red like balls to the wall risk, I don't. I would rather see mandatory coping tricks in pipe, then the current "boost till ya bust" format. I love the B&E ideas in Slope. More flowy courses where speed is limited and features demand ski skills and creative vision. My full respect to all the Athletes who helped to "progress" the sport to this incredible Olympic high level. However, we should change the direction of the competitive sport for the benefit of the athletes future health and to make the sport attainable to more skiers. But, will Red X be able to sell it if it's less risky? Who knows? But the athletes will compete wherever there is prize money and they will adapt.

Another Stumpa ramble.... I'm out.

It's not like people only throw down in the park because of these big contests. You can scale back on the contests but people are still going to be hucking dubs no matter what and some still doing triples here and there.


Is it dangerous? Of course. It's always been dangerous. These sports have always pushed the boundaries of what's possible. I think it would make sense to keep booters at a certain point instead of making 120 footers throughout the course so somebody can huck a quad, but you can't blame the olympics for the progression of the sport.

Long before everyone had a video camera people were hucking all kinds of sketchy shit. Sure looking back some of the tricks seem tame but people were getting wrecked on them as they were cutting edge borderline impossible at the time.

I wish there were more courses that had a style factor, or creative speed limited lines as you mentioned. That said even if you got rid of or completely changed all the major contests, I still want to hit big jumps. Even if dubs were banned from contests and you just didn't see them, I'd still feel the urge to toss one.

It seems like you see contest skiing as slavery. These pros are forced to do these dangerous tricks for the crowd and none of them want to be there. I mean in other sports it happened where a new trick came and pushed the OG's out. In freestyle mtx the backflip sent some people packing. They couldn't compete at that level anymore or were unwilling to learn that trick.

I agree that there's a limit to how far we can progress in this direction but I don't feel that people hate doing it.

People that aren't pros, aren't getting anything out of it other than fun, are hucking flips off rails and dubs on jumps without cameras or anything. They're doing it because that's what they want to do. Even if you change the contests those people will still be there.

You said...

You can scale back on the contests but people are still going to be hucking dubs no matter what and some still doing triples here and there.

"I wish there were more courses that had a style factor, or creative speed limited lines as you mentioned. That said even if you got rid of or completely changed all the major contests, I still want to hit big jumps. Even if dubs were banned from contests and you just didn't see them, I'd still feel the urge to toss one.

It seems like you see contest skiing as slavery. These pros are forced to do these dangerous tricks for the crowd and none of them want to be there.

People that aren't pros, aren't getting anything out of it other than fun, are hucking flips off rails and dubs on jumps without cameras or anything. They're doing it because that's what they want to do. Even if you change the contests those people will still be there."[/QUOTE]

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I'm all for people doing whatever they want to with their bodies. I find big tricks amazing and very athletic. I don't see contests as "slavery" but more elitist events. Hitting major league pitching is difficult and somewhat dangerous, but I could stand in there and give it a go and probably get out okay. Freeskiing is at a point that only a tiny percentage of skiers could survive the course and fewer could actually perform a lame version of any of the tricks, just like aerials. I have watched hundreds of excellent and stylee freeskiers give up the sport because the stakes are too high. The FIS version of the sport is alienating more good Freeskiers because massive air too risky and the stunts are incredibly difficult. People are always going to push boundaries and limitations and they should. But, if FIS does not want the competitive sport to be as specialized and elitist as aerials then they need re-design the competitive sport.

As for Olympics, they have not officially said anything about Freeskiing or Snowboarding Slope. But, if they actually did come out in support of modifying the sport to decrease the injuries I would be amazed and impressed. But, in my view the worst course at the Olympics was the Skier/Boarder Cross. That last jump was just an accident waiting to happen. That course was an inexcusably high risk venue.

Anyway, my guess is that the Olympics will want the full circus to continue exactly how the sponsors want it.... High Risk.

Idk, I couldn't compete with any of the people in any of those sports.

I don't feel like they should make the bobsled courses smaller and more accessible to that it compares to my local sledding hill.

The top of the sports are always going to be for the elite few. You might not be able to make it down that particular course but maybe you slay the fuck out of something half that size at your mountain. If you're a little kid you can hit a little 8' box at your home mountain. I mean in figure skating, or basketball, things like that the venue is the same but the level of athleticism is the big difference. I understand that but freestyle skiing involves features. If this was ski ballet it would be the same as the other sports. The better the athlete the bigger the features they're going to be throwing down on.

I don't see how people all the sudden see it as being bad for the sport? I mean personally I'd rather see laid out floaty singles with the occasional dub, vs. all triples but I don't feel like people doing them are killing the sport.

I don't even think it's close to aerials in terms of accessibility. You can have a ton of fun in a terrain park without even going upside down.

If mountains got rid of beginner parks and only had XL features that's when it would start to get sketchy and the up and coming kid would either have to learn to hit a 70 footer, get broke, or quit. As long as we have varied features to fit errbody on the hill I think we're good.

Excellent debate. Enjoying reading it.

^idk if posted, but since thread still lives:

Lars Engebregtsen:
«The comments I made were in a conversation with a journalist and not meant for publication. The reported comments were personal and do not represent the position of the IOC. The comments were based on personal clinical experience, from treating a number of athletes over the lst few years and following the snow board and slope style WC and Olympic competitions, and were not based on any statistics or data from Sochi, so no conclusions can or should be drawn from them. Analysis of the injury data from Sochi is not yet completed, but clinical reports indicate that in slopestyle in Sochi there were no serious fractures (fyi - there was a broken collar bone and wrist) or other significant injuries apart from a number of knee ligament sprains - in particular Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries. Most importantly it is wrong to draw any preliminary conclusions based on these reports until the overall injury statistics are analysed. Previous studies show that knees are the most commonly injured area in all skiing disciplines and ACL tears are the most common of all serious injuries (defined as an injury that results in over 28 days absence from sport) across all disciplines. The IOC and FIS are working together to ensure the safety of athletes. There is excellent ongoing surveillance work and monitoring of injuries by FIS with the support of the IOC and Oslo IOC Research Centres which was published in BJSM in September 2013.»

Olympic official (Lars Engebregtsen):
«The comments I made were in a conversation with a journalist and not meant for publication. The reported comments were personal and do not represent the position of the IOC. The comments were based on personal clinical experience, from treating a number of athletes over the lst few years and following the snow board and slope style WC and Olympic competitions, and were not based on any statistics or data from Sochi, so no conclusions can or should be drawn from them. Analysis of the injury data from Sochi is not yet completed, but clinical reports indicate that in slopestyle in Sochi there were no serious fractures (fyi - there was a broken collar bone and wrist) or other significant injuries apart from a number of knee ligament sprains - in particular Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries. Most importantly it is wrong to draw any preliminary conclusions based on these reports until the overall injury statistics are analysed. Previous studies show that knees are the most commonly injured area in all skiing disciplines and ACL tears are the most common of all serious injuries (defined as an injury that results in over 28 days absence from sport) across all disciplines. The IOC and FIS are working together to ensure the safety of athletes. There is excellent ongoing surveillance work and monitoring of injuries by FIS with the support of the IOC and Oslo IOC Research Centres which was published in BJSM in September 2013.»

Im not even worried. The IOC official who raised concerns about the sport is a doctor who does not speak on behalf of the IOC.

Bringing in advertisers generates a lot of revenue for the IOC so I highly doubt that the International olympic committee has an interest in taking out a sport that earned extremely high tv ratings and has become hugely popular after only one olympic games. Don't forget that there is a monetary incentive to keep the olympics exciting and relevant.

If anything they will change the course so that half of the women aren't casing the jumps and being penalized for hitting the smaller ones so that they can actually put a run together if the snow gets slower. Those huge JOI style jumps are epic to watch and are definitely good for progression, don't get me wrong, but I think it takes a lot more experience to hit jumps like those safely than your traditional 60ft step over. Sure it's on a huge stage, but you can't build courses and features to suit only the top 20 athletes in the world when the field is much greater than that.

It sucks that it has to be like that, but thats the way it will go, Im sure. At the end of the day it's just another reason to bring back JOSS

loganimlachAll that I can hope for is that slopestyle competitions become so stagnant and boring (a la moguls) that a larger spotlight becomes shone on big mountain and urban skiing, warranting larger budgets for the films and athletes. the beating that they took leading up to the olympics is just disgraceful. how cool will it be if kids can say "hey I want to grow up and my job be a professional big mountain skier" and their teacher won't look at them like their eating mushrooms?

still a good chance they ate some shrooms

no worries sliding down a fucking ice chute and not able to control anything is perfectly safe but skiing on snow and basically being in control the entire time is way to fucking dangerous.





thanks shawn white