AERIAL SKIING: Australia has a proud history of success in Aerial Skiing, with more medals won at the Olympic, World Championship and World Cup level by its athletes than any other winter discipline.

The success has been based on having a major focus on technical execution, which has always resonated well with the judges.

To the untrained eye, it looks impossible to break down and analyse the amazing jumps the athletes perform in real time, so how do the judges do it?

The Olympic judging panel in PyeongChang for aerials is made up of five judges, who each evaluate the competitors' performance based upon the aerial skiing judging criteria.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BeoFie1n4eJ/

Each judge gives a score out of 10, which looks at the following elements:
- Air (0-2 points - 20% of the score)
- Form (0-5 points - 50% of the score)
- Landing (0-3 points - 30% of the score)

Air refers to how much air you take off the jump. Generally, the more air you have, the more time to perform the jump as smooth as possible.

Form is how well you perform the trick. Judges look at the timing of the athlete’s twist to ensure they finish the twist in time with the flip, and also look to see how straight they are in the air and look for any breaks of form.

Landing is the final part of the trick, and very important. Often an athlete can successfully complete the Air and Form elements, but can come unstuck on the landing. Judges like to see nice and square landings, with athletes having their weight equally distributed. Watch out for athletes dragging a hand, or back slapping, which will be penalised.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfAXsJwnxBe/

The score out of 10, will be multiplied by the appropriate degree of difficulty factor to determine the total score for each jump. The competitors final score for is determined by adding together the total scores from each jump

Degree of difficulty “DD” is the points value assigned to each trick. Basicly, The more flips and twists, the higher the DD. See the full Aerial Skiing Jump Code and DD Chart HERE>>>

Women’s qualifications are on Day 6 (February 15) with finals the following day, and men’s qualifications will be held on Day 8 (February 17) with finals also the day after.

Andrew Pattison
olympics.com.au