The 2026 Olympic qualification period has started, and this weekend, pro skiers and snowboarders will start competing for their place in the Olympic Games. To make the Olympic team, athletes must compete in a series of sanctioned events and earn points toward a qualifying quota. The 2024/25 FIS Park & Pipe Big Air competition is their first opportunity to throw down.
Big Air Chur will kick off the 2024/25 FIS Park & Pipe Big Air season on Oct. 18 and 19. With the Milano-Cortina Winter Games on the horizon, the stakes are high for every competing athlete.
According to the International Ski Federation (FIS), this will be the “biggest” park and pipe big air season in the competition’s history. Between Oct. 18 and Mar. 30, it has six freeskiing competitions and five snowboarding competitions scheduled — more than it has ever hosted for a single year. These 11 Olympic qualifying events are spread across Europe, Asia, and North America. The finale will be a massive event in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
In a press release, FIS promised, “There’s plenty to be hyped about this winter.”
Here is the quick and dirty rundown on where to watch the 2024/25 FIS Park & Pipe Big Air Competition, how to get results, the schedule of competitions, and some of the athletes who will be there.
2024/25 FIS Park & Pipe Big Air Competition
In the U.S., if you want to watch the action live, you must have an account with skiandsnowboard.live. Or, if you’re in Canada, CBC Sports will broadcast the competition. If you want live results from the big air competition, you can find them for free on the FIS website or app.
When Are the Competitions?
- Oct. 18 to 19: Chur, Switzerland
- Nov. 29 to Dec. 1: Beijing, China
- Jan. 3 to 5: Klagenfurt, Austria
- Jan. 9 to 11: Kreischberg, Austria
- Jan. 30 to Feb. 6: Aspen, USA
- Mar. 11 to 14: Tignes, France
- Mar. 16 to 30: St. Moritz, Switzerland – 2025 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle, and Freeski World Championships. All of the finals for Snowboard, Freestyle, and Freeski events will be held together for the biggest FIS event of the year.
Who Will Be There?
This year’s list of big air competitors has some of the biggest names in freeskiing and freestyle skiing and riding. There are too many awesome athletes to list all of them. FIS highlights more of them on its web pages, previewing the skiing and snowboarding competitions. Here are just a few of the competitors we’re most excited to see.
Skiers
- Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud, 24, won three out of the four stops held in last year’s Park & Pipe big air competition. She will be back this year. Gremaud competed in Beijing’s 2022 Winter Games and won gold in freestyle skiing.
- Tess LeDeux, 22, from La Plagne Tarentaise, France, will also compete in this year’s FIS Park & Pipe big air competition. LeDeux is the second in all-time FIS Freeski World Cup victories and the only two-time big air World Champion in FIS Freeski history.
- The USA’s own Alex Hall, 26, will also be hitting the pipe and park this year at the FIS big air competition. Last year, Hall had what the FIS describes as the “best start-to-finish World Cup season of his career,” even though he finished second in both slopestyle and Freeski standings.
Boarders
- Kokomo Murase, 19, will be making an anticipated return after winning the Copper Mountain (USA) big air World Cup last season. Murase not only landed three triple corks during the FIS competition but also barely missed becoming the first woman ever to land a triple cork 1620 at the X Games Big Air Competition.
- Austria’s Anna Gasser, 33, is one of the most consistent athletes to podium when she shows up to compete. She is the reigning two-time Olympic gold medal Freestyle snowboarder and the reigning big air World Champion.
- Last year, the Japanese men’s snowboarding team pretty much swept the big air competition. So keep your eyes on those guys as well.
