Freestyle skiing

Vancouver freestyle skiing legend, Wayne Wong in classic K2 skis

The first appearance of freestyle skiing at the Winter Olympics was in 1988. It was here first, that it was a demonstration sport at the XV Olympic s games in Calgary, Canada.

The venues were Canada Olympic Park for aerials and ballet, and Nakiska for moguls.

Jean-Luc Brassard! Yeh baby.

Jean-Luc Brassard won the first freestyle skiing gold medal (men’s moguls) at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.

It was here, at the XVII Olympic Winter games that freestyle skiing had it’s debut as a medal event. Brassard has been credited with popularizing the wearing of bright knee pads to show off absorption and leg position for mogul skiers to best show judges how smoothly the athlete is taking the turns.

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the venue was at Deer Valley.

There were both men’s and women’s competition in both aerials and moguls events.  Canadian Jeff Bean came in fourth in Men’s aerials.  Canadians Veronica Brenner and Deidra Dionne earned Silver and Bronze medals respectively in the Women’s aerial.

Freestyle skiing connection to Vancouver

Vancouver born Wayne Wong is known as one of the founding fathers of freestyle skiing.

As a person of Chinese heritage, Wayne Wong, was an idol of sorts to a generation of bananas like myself.

Through Wayne and other great Vancouverites like Greg Athans, Daryl Daigle and others, the UGLY Chinese Canadian was also into crazy aerials and ballet freestyle. And to this day, still attempts to do the odd freestyle ski trick … cross overs, daigle bangers, wong bangers and mule kicks.

Owch.

Gawd… if only me old body could still bend…

Here is more on Wayne Wong from Tahoe magazine:

In 2006, Powder Magazine named Wong as one of the greatest skiers of our time for his influence over the evolution of freestyle skiing, widely known as “hotdogging” during the 1960s.

Hotdogging’s emerging and unorthodox ski style infused traditional skiing with fun, creative tricks; and Wayne Wong’s ability to hotdog better than the entire freestyle field was evident from the get-go.

Because of his talent, the style caught like wildfire and became the popular way to be cool on the slopes throughout the 1960s and well into the 1970s – so much so that in 1979, the International Ski Federation recognized hotdogging as an official winter ski discipline, and a new World Cup and Olympic sport was born. The term hotdogging eventually became known as freestyle skiing, paving the way for Olympic athletes.

Here’s an old pepsi TV commercial featuring Vancouver skiing legend, WayneWong:

Here is part of an interview with Wayne Wong, courtesy of the Great Outdoors Blog (www.greatoutdoors.com)

As Skiing magazine’s 1972 Freestyler of the year, he was the poster child of the emerging hot-dog attitude. I remember standing at the top of Round House in Sun Valley, at my first Chevy contest in ’72, watching everyone flipping around and doing their tricks, and then Wong showed up. He had an aura about him. A year earlier he had taken third place at the Waterville National Exhibition, and his image—the white glasses and toothy grin, deeply tanned face, black mop of hair—was everywhere, in magazines and even in a nationally aired Pepsi commercial. I snatched an opening and jumped on the T-bar with him to learn all his secrets. Nearly 40 years later I still have questions for the man behind those mirrored lenses.

On April 16, 2009, Wong was inducted into the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame for his impact on skiing culture. Not too shabby for a kid from Vancouver, BC who loved to ski but had no idea what he wanted to do with his life.

GORDY: So you’re actually Canadian…

Wong: It’s true. I think a lot of people don’t know that. My parents were born in Vancouver, and I was born and raised in Vancouver. I’m second generation Chinese. My wife, Karen, is American. My children were born in Canada.

[…]

Please visit www.greatoutdoors.com for the rest of the Wong interview!

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To Canada’s Freestyle  Ski team…

Good luck! Bon chance!

Here is their Olympic competition schedule (venue: Cypress bowl, now marketed as Cypress mountain):

GO Canada GO!!!!

Link to Canadian Freestyle Ski Association http://www.freestyleski.com/en/

Anybody willing to bet that Canada’s first Gold on home turf will occur with a freestyle skiing event!?

Go Canada GO!!!