Freestyle Skiing

Freestyle skiing developed out of ski acrobatics, which started in the 1930s in the United States. It became popular in the 1960s, with the first formal competitions starting at Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, in the USA.

Freestyle skiing was first held at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics as a demonstration sport. In 1992, moguls was contested as a full-medal sport in Albertville, with aerials and ballet contested as demonstration events. Freestyle has become a very popular spectator sport at the Olympics, and the programme has expanded to now include aerials, moguls, ski cross, halfpipe, and slopestyle events for both genders. Beijing 2022 brought the first big air events for both men and women, and the first mixed aerials team event. The programme was enlarged yet again to 15 full events at Milano-Cortina 2026, with the addition of dual moguls events for men and women. Ballet was never contested as a medal sport at the Olympics, and international competition in that event basically stopped after 2000.

As of 2026, the United States lead the medal table with 41 medals and 14 golds, followed closely by Canada, with 35 medals and also 14 golds. Canadian Mikaël Kingsbury leads the men’s medal table, with five medals and two golds, followed by American David Wise, with three medals and also two golds.

China’s Eileen Gu leads both the women and the overall freestyle skiing medal count, with six medals and three golds. She is followed by compatriot Xu Mengtao (five medals and two golds) and Swiss skier Mathilde Gremaud (four medals and two golds).

Freestyle is considered a discipline of the sport of skiing by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and, as such, is governed internationally by the former Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS), which was founded on 2 February 1924 during the Chamonix Olympics. The FIS succeeded the Internationale Skikommission (CIS), which had been formed on 18 February 1910 in Christiania (today Oslo, Norway). Despite keeping the acronym FIS, on 26 May 2022, at the FIS Congress at Milano, Italy, its name was changed to the International Ski & Snowboard Federation. The FIS not only governs freestyle skiing, but also the Olympic disciplines of Alpine skiing, cross country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and snowboarding. As of January 2026, the FIS has 141 affiliated member nations.