The Rules of Ski Cross: Everything about the Excellent Winter Kind of Sport

Ski cross is one of numerous skiing kind of sport; it is a freestyle discipline. Competitions take place in specially constructed skiing tracks. When it comes to the final stages, four athletes participate in a single race, in which they should overcome a track with a few obstacles, including curves and various ski-jump ramps. The main goal of this sport variation is to be faster than the others in overcoming the distance. It happened in 2010 when ski cross became an Olympic kind of sport.

General Principles

Many tend to believe that ski cross is the most complicated freestyle discipline because this kind of skiing requires both excellent technique of skiing and overcoming numerous obstacles and athletes’ abilities to think critically. To explain, it is more essential for a skier to be faster than his/her direct competitors than to show the best time.

In addition to that, the ski cross is a very spectator sporting discipline. It attracts the audience with the unpredictable nature of separate rides, captivates with dangerous moments, intrigues with unpredictable outcomes, and introduces a lot of different emotions. It is a common thing when skiers fall down physically and fall out of the race. As soon as it is prohibited to create obstacles for competitors and exercise aggressive attitude toward them, skiers try to take over their rivals while entering the curves or overcoming the obstacles.

Ski Cross Tracks

Ski cross tracks are constructed in such a manner to make it possible for individual athletes to demonstrate all their technical skills and abilities. That is why these tracks are equipped with curves of all possible variations and difficulty levels. Furthermore, the athletes are forced to make jumps of different lengths and show their speed abilities at straight parts of these tracks. The best tracks that are suitable for ski cross competitions are located at ski areas in Austria, France, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, and Russia. These tracks are usually 900-1200 meters long and have a difference in elevation from 180 to 250 meters. As a rule, it takes 45-60 seconds for athletes to overcome these tracks. What is more, athletes manage to achieve an average speed of about 65 km/hour.

Equipment

Ski cross equipment has a set of distinctive features, which results in unique requirements. As a result, ski cross equipment is independent and created specifically for this kind of sport and for every professional athlete. As a rule, every athlete should have a special suit that consists of trousers and a jumper. Furthermore, there are special jumpsuits. In any case, an athlete should have thermals under their basic equipment. Considering high speed and aerodynamic demands, the equipment should be made of firm materials that should have extremely high values of water resistance and vapor transmissivity. The equipment should have an ergonomic design. All the snitches and zips should be glued because athletes often perform in poor weather conditions.

The ski cross suits should be extremely functional and light, which means that no additional elements, including pockets, are not allowed. The only exception refers to a pocket that is set in a sleeve; it is used for a ski pass. Even though athletes compete in this equipment, it is not suitable for long term staying under the conditions of low temperatures. That is why athletes should wear jackets or coats before starts and warm-up trousers. In addition to that, almost every professional ski cross athlete has his/her own desires concerning the equipment. They must be satisfied because their satisfaction can directly contribute to successful results.

Skis for this kind of sport combines a few features. On the one hand, they impress with clearly indicated carving geometry. On the other hand, they make it possible to achieve a great speed while entering curves, and this possibility is extremely good even compared to skis for traditional disciplines, including slalom and others. A bit greater elasticity makes them less vulnerable to the quality of tracks and helps hide slight inequalities. As a result, the skis are said to be more comfortable and more suitable for skiing. However, it does not matter that athletes should not take any efforts to ski. At present, there are a lot of various models that are designed to meet the peculiarities of ski cross.

Ski Cross Competitions

All ski cross completions are divided into two stages: qualifying stages and finals. As for the qualifying ones, athletes take turns to overcome a particular track. Then, their time is compared to determine 32 male and 16 female athletes who will qualify for the next stage. After that, the participants are divided into 4-athlete groups, which is followed by giving starting numbers in accordance with the results showed at the qualifying stage. Thus, athletes can get red, green, blue, and yellow numbers. The notion of colors was introduced to provide athletes with the possibility to choose a starting ramp. Thus, an athlete with a red number has the priority to choose the ramp, and so on. Women compete on the same track like that for men.

Every separate ride will show the two best athletes who will qualify for the final stage. Once all the rides are over, two finals are going to be organized. The Minor Final unites athletes who compete for the 5th-8th places, while the best four performers participate in the Grand Final to become an overall winner of an event. Photo finish is used in the final stages to eliminate the possibility of a judging mistake.

Finally, it is necessary to mention those ski cross international competitions that gather the most skillful and experienced athletes from the whole world. It refers to the following events:

1. World Cup;
2. World Championships;
3. The Olympic Games.