Big Air, Men

The women’s big air freestyle skiing event was a relatively new one on the international scene, having made its début in the World Cup in 2017, the World Championships in 2019, and the Olympics in 2022. Switzerland’s Fabian Bösch and Sweden’s Oliwer Magnusson, the 2019 and 2021 World Champions respectively, were both veterans of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic slopestyle event, with Bösch having also competed in 2014. Czech-born Austrian skier Matěj Švancer had won big air at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, as well as the two times that it had been held at the World Cup in the past season.

The qualifying round did not go as expected, as both Bösch and Švancer experienced difficulties that prevented them from reaching the final. The top scorer was Birk Ruud of Norway, the 2016 Youth Winter Olympic slopestyle champion and 2019 World runner-up. Magnusson was third and in-between was Alex Hall of the United States, who had a silver medal in slopestyle from the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics and bronze from the most recent World Championships.

Ruud set the bar high in the first run of the final, scoring the highest total in the entire event. This put pressure on the other competitors, many of whom suffered trying to catch up to Ruud. With a high score in the second round, however, he was essentially unbeatable and skied his third run with the Norwegian flag as a victory lap. Nearly every other skier had good runs and bad ones but, when the snow settled and the points were added up, silver and bronze went to Colby Stevenson of the United States and Henrik Harlaut of Sweden respectively. Stevenson was the 2021 World runner-up in slopestyle, while Harlaut had made his name at the Winter X Games, while also being big air World runner-up in 2019. An additional merit of note came from Leonardo Donaggio, who finished in fifth, the best-ever Olympic finish for an Italian freestyle skier.