Freestyle Skiing is relatively new compared to other Winter Sports. Its first World Championships were held back in 1986 and the excitement that revolves around the Moguls and Aerials competitions made it a crowd favourite.
Calgary '88 included 3 disciplines as demonstration sports: Moguls, Aerials and Acro. Their popularity led to their inclusion in the 1992 program but this time Moguls was included in the official program. From 1994 onward, Moguls and Aerials were the 2 official Freestyle Olympic events.
Here is a description of the 2 Olympic sports:
- Moguls: Scores are determined by the addition of points for speed, the technical execution and two compulsory upright jumps.
- Aerials: Competitions consist of two jumps judged according to their execution with the resulting scores multiplied by a degree of difficulty.
Ski Cross (Skiers race against each other in groups of four to six on a specially built Freestyle Cross course that includes banked turns, jumps, waves and terrain and other freestyle skiing elements.), Halfpipe (Skiers perform a series of jumps, tricks and manoeuvres in the halfpipe that are judged for their degree of difficulty and execution.) and Dual Moguls (Competitors compete head to head on parallel mogul courses.) are other freestyle sports. It's possible that Dual Moguls could be included in future Olympic programs. Ski Cross and Halfpipe are a bit younger disciplines.