Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

IOC adds ski halfpipe, women's ski jumping to Games

The addition of ski halfpipe is a welcome addition for Canada
66324_l

On Wednesday morning the International Olympic Committee announced the addition of six new medal events to the calendar for the 2014 Games, including women's ski jumping and men's and women's ski halfpipe.

The announcement was a bit of a surprise, coming just two days after IOC president Jacques Rogge said in a press conference that a final decision wouldn't be made until a site inspection of Sochi could determine whether the events are feasible.

Other new sports to get the go-ahead on Wednesday were the biathlon mixed relay, a figure skating team event and the luge team relay.

Additional sports are still being considered, including ski and snowboard slopestyle and an alpine team event. Both could be added at a later date.

The final decision had to be approved by Sochi organizers, based on their ability to host the athletes and events, as well as their own prospects in the sport. Host nations are generally more willing to approve new events if they have an opportunity to benefit with podiums - such as Canada with the sport of ski cross.

An announcement regarding those events will be made in a few weeks after a feasibility study is completed.

The addition of ski halfpipe is welcome for Canada with some solid medal prospects in both the men's and women's fields. Sarah Burke, who lives in Squamish, is the current X Games champion and won the final two World Cup events to win the overall crystal globe for the sport - that's despite missing all of the early events as she recovered from shoulder surgery.

Burke released this statement on Wednesday. "I'm very excited and thrilled. I've been waiting for this for a number of years and have been pushing for it. So now that it's happening, it's pretty exciting.

"It's still a ways off, but this has been a dream of mine since I was a child. It's a dream come true. I hope to get the chance to make my country proud and bring home a medal."

As well as Burke, Rosalind Groenewoud is the current world champion and was ranked second on the World Cup circuit this season.

Two of the Canadian men finished in the top 10 of the World Cup, with Vernon's Justin Dorey in eighth and Calgary's Noah Bowman in 10th. Mike Riddle, ranked 12th, is the current world champion.

"We already have a strong team, a great coach and excellent facilities in this country," said Riddle. "I don't want to jinx anything, but I think that with more funding we could sweep the podium at the Games."

Unlike other nations, Canada has cultivated a national halfpipe program under coach Trennon Paynter. The skiers have trained and travelled together under the Canadian Halfpipe Ski Team banner, and will now be fully funded under the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association, Own the Podium, Sport Canada and other agencies. The team will likely be officially based in the Whistler area, although there is also an Olympic-sized pipe in Calgary.

At a time when resorts have been closing their halfpipes, the prospect that halfpipe could be added to the Olympics has created a lot more interest in the sport. Whistler Blackcomb hosted the B.C. Freestyle Championships last weekend, and the halfpipe competition was completely sold out.

"The whole event was great, and to have that many participants in halfpipe - it was full with 100 participants - it was good to see that sport come back," said Whistler Blackcomb Freestyle Club head coach Nic Bazin. "The sport kind of died, and now with the World Championships and the Olympics we're seeing it grow again and get bigger, and the younger kids and athletes are showing there's some potential there."

Whistler Blackcomb is one of the only resorts in the province that continues to invest in its halfpipe, and recently added a small pipe to the Blackcomb Terrain Park - as well as a new pipe cutter that can create Olympic-standard pipes with 22-foot walls.

The Canadian Freestyle Ski Team also welcomed the news from London: "We had been cautiously optimistic that the IOC would rule in favour of ski halfpipe, and we did know that it was a bit of a longer shot for slopestyle," he said. "Still, both sets of athletes demonstrate incredible talent and both are certainly deserving of Olympic inclusion."

Canada has also cultivated some strong young prospects in women's ski jumping in the run-up to the 2010 Games. Most recently, Taylor Heinrich was 18th at the World Ski Jumping Championships in Oslo this year.

The U.S. and Japanese teams are particularly strong, as well as Scandinavian countries. And the women can jump - in 2008, American jumper Lindsay Van set the record distance on the Normal Hill at Whistler Olympic Park, which stood for two years until the Olympic Games.

Women's ski jumping became a major controversy for the 2010 Games after the IOC ruled that the sport didn't meet its criteria for inclusion. However, the ski jumpers demonstrated that the IOC was willing to bend its rules in the past for sports like women's snowboardcross, and pointed out that, technically, men's ski jumping shouldn't be in the Games either.

A group of U.S. and Canadian ski jumpers filed a human rights complaint, claiming that their exclusion was in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Under the Charter, government money cannot be spent on venues that exclude women or minorities, and government money was most definitely spent on the 2010 ski jumping venue.

The complaint was dropped as the group filed a discrimination lawsuit in the B.C. Supreme Court. The judge ruled that the IOC's decision was discriminatory and upheld most of the jumper's claims, but also said that only the IOC had the power to make a sport "Olympic" and that Canada's laws didn't apply to the international organization. The ski jumpers appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, but the judge's ruling was upheld.