Winter Olympics Snowboarding Slopestyle: What are the rules and score?

The snowboarding slopestyle is in the Winter Olympics for the second time, but what are the rules and how do they score the event?

Snowboarding slopestyle is a Winter Olympic event for just the second time after making its debut at the 2014 Games in Sochi. The best way to describe slopestyle is to compare it to a street course in skateboarding. Obviously snowboarders need the momentum of a course down a mountain to maintain speed and peform tricks, that’s a key difference.

The slopestyle course has a mix of jumps and rails that riders can use to execute tricks. The Pyeongchang course, at Bokwang Snow Park, has six features, split evenly between jumps and rail sections.

Slopestyle has two rounds, qualification and a final. The qualification round consists of two runs while the final round consists of three. In 2014, the final round was also two runs.

In each round, the best run will be the competitor’s determining score. The top 12 riders in the qualification round will compete in the final, and if the organizers split the qualification round into two separate heats than the top six from each heat will adfance. The worst score to advance will go first in the final round and the best qualification score will go last.

The scoring criteria for runs has already changed from the sport’s Olympic debut in 2014. Each slopestyle run is scored by a team of nine judges, three more than in halfpipe. Each judge has different reponsibilities, three are responsible for evaluating each run based on overall impression of the entire run. The remaining six judges are split into three groups of two and each is responsible for specific sections of the course.

Final scores are out of 100 and divided 60/40 between trick scores and overall impression (60% trick scores, 40% overall impression).

Because this course has six sections, each section worth is effecitvely worth 10 percent of the overall score, with each trick in the run receiving a score of up to 10 points.

The criteria for scoring includes:

• Amplitude
• Difficulty
• Variety
• Execution
• Progression

Amplitude basically means the height a rider achieves, the higher the better, not only on the first hit but throughout the run. Progression is an interesting metric. This is where riders can score big points for introducing new tricks or linking together tricks in a way that has never been done before.

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