A Man's Course: Is women's slopestyle skiing sustainable?

It’s late April at Keystone, Colorado, and, under light blue skies interrupted only by a few puffy clouds, Maude Raymond and Tiril Sjåstad Christiansen are sessioning a private park during a rare women’s-only photoshoot. In spite of a breeze, the two ladies are trading tricks on a step over that’s 65 feet to the sweet spot. Christiansen lands a switch 10 tail grab after doing forward and switch 9s. Raymond tries a different grab on her 9s.

The following day, Keri Herman, fresh off the plane from an NBC Olympics shoot in LA, joins them. The trio migrates to a bigger jump. It’s 75 feet to the knuckle and after a few smooth tries, Christiansen goes too big, over-rotates and lands on her hip and hand. Herman and Raymond continue to session, moving from feature to feature until sunset. I miss all that as I drive Christiansen to the Vail Valley Medical Center where X-rays confirm that her hand is broken in three places. She’ll need surgery back home in Norway. The shoot’s over for Christiansen and so is her career long injury-free run.

Tiril Sjåstad Christiansen at Keystone, CO. Photo by Nate Abbott.

“It’s part of the game,” says Herman, 30. “It happens to all of us. Injuries make you think twice about pushing the limits in women’s slopestyle skiing, but you get it back.” Last season seemed particularly injury plagued for the women of freeskiing, though.

Megan Gunning, Emilia Wint and Ashley Battersby tore their ACLs; Brita Sigourney broke her collarbone; Eveline Bhend partially tore her ACL; Emma Dahlström suffered a hip injury; Herman broke her hand and suffered a concussion; and Rose Battersby suffered a lumbar spine fracture. Meg Olenick missed the entire season after a fifth knee surgery. Kaya Turski and Kim Lamarre tore their ACLs; Raymond tore her ACL and MCL; Devin Logan tore her ACL and meniscus; and Keltie Hansen partially tore her ACL.

Grete Eliassen was practicing for Dew Tour at Killington, VT on a particularly windy day in January 2012 when she knuckled the bottom feature and blew her knee. “If [the jump] was smaller, it wouldn’t have happened,” says Eliassen. “Jump size is 100 percent the reason why girls are getting hurt. It’s hard to progress the sport when you’re thinking about just surviving. I’d be trying new things if jumps were smaller.”

Wint blew her ACL in December, 2012 at the Dew Tour at Breckenridge, when she came up short on a 67-foot booter. She had already cleared the jump multiple times, and she says the jump’s size wasn’t the issue. The problem was the blizzard conditions during competition.

For the most part, Wint is satisfied with the size of today’s slopestyle jumps, “I don’t think they need to get any smaller, but I don’t think they need to get any bigger.” But she admits there’s a problem. “At this rate, there is zero sustainability in women’s slopestyle skiing. When we get to the end of the season and the top 10 have been reduced to the top three, that’s ridiculous, and it doesn’t happen in any other sport.”

As female slopestyle skiers prepare for their Olympic debut, more and more are advocating for smaller jumps or separate takeoffs to combat the discipline’s growing injury rate, and to promote progression. It’s a controversial topic that some worry is a step backwards after women like Sarah Burke worked so hard to establish equal participation, prize money and exposure.

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During the women’s shoot at Keystone, Christiansen and Raymond discussed their contrary opinions. Christiansen is a fan of big jumps. The 18-year-old Norwegian, fresh off an incredibly successful rookie year that included X Games slopestyle gold, hadn’t been injured until the broken hand. She says the only courses she encountered this year in which the jumps were too big were in Whistler and Norway. Raymond, 25, and Freeskier’s 2013 Skier of the Year, started skiing in her native Québec at age 18, after competitively diving and ski racing. Six months after she hit the park, she was landing cork 10s. Six months later, she blew both ACLs and was out for a year and half. She’s broken her ankle, ribs, collarbone and back. She’s undergone eight knee surgeries in six years.

“I think women’s slope is progressing, but not at all like it should be,” said Raymond. “How can you progress a sport with two-thirds of the field out due to injury? The progression is not happening because we have huge jumps. The girls are doing 3s when they could be doing cork 9s. Everyone is for big jumps until they get hurt. If we had smaller jumps, girls would be trying cork 10s instead of just focusing on carrying enough speed to clear the jump.”

The Survey

Almost two years ago, Kristi Leskinen, with the help of We Are Snowboarding and the Association of Freeskiing Professionals, polled top male and female slopestyle skiers and snowboarders to assess their satisfaction with slopestyle courses. Ninety of them completed the anonymous survey with roughly equal representation from genders. “The survey showed that men and women actually want very different things when it comes to jump sizes and would certainly benefit from changes to current courses,” says Leskinen.

The average ideal jump size from the 40 women who filled out the survey was 55 feet, while the men polled wanted an average of 69 feet.

“Sarah Burke always hit the bigger jumps, so others presume she never would have advocated for separate takeoffs.” (See Sarah’s survey responses below.)

Leskinen’s solution was to add 10 and subtract 10 from the ideal sizes to establish a range. “If the jumps are in or below where the ranges overlap, there doesn’t need to be separate takeoffs,” says Leskinen. “Maybe you only need separate takeoffs on a couple of jumps in the course. If the men’s course has three jumps that are 60, 65 and 80 feet, maybe you only need a separate takeoff on the bottom jump.”

Leskinen assumed people would acknowledge the findings as legitimate, but the survey didn’t gain the traction she expected. Even when ESPN published the results, the title marginalized the findings: “Leskinen Vies for Smaller Jumps.” Backlash ensued. Snowboarder and X Games slopestyle medalist Spencer O’Brien argued that building smaller jumps for women would push the sport backwards. And, as is often the case, the loudest voices seemed to overwhelm the majority who had responded anonymously.

The late Sarah Burke was among those whose response was not linked to her name. She suffered many injuries from contests, including a broken back on a slopestyle course and broken nose from decking in the halfpipe. A lot of people guess what Burke would say. She always hit the bigger jumps, so others presume she never would have advocated for separate takeoffs. According to Leskinen, Burke and Turski helped her come up with the survey questions and were the first two people to fill out the form. With her husband Rory Bushfield’s permission, here are Burke’s survey results:

Survey Questions:

Q: What is the most common concern about the course at events?

Sarah Burke: Not enough available speed/can’t clear jumps.

Q: How often do competition runs reflect your best riding capabilities?

SB: Rarely.

Q: What is your ideal contest jump size?

SB: 50 Feet.

Q: How do you feel about the current jump sizes at major contests?

SB: They’re a little big. I would be more likely to do harder tricks if the jumps were smaller.

Q: Do you think having jump options would add to progression for both men and women?

SB: Yes.

“[Burke’s] survey results are right at the average,” says Leskinen. “She was never one to back down and could always step up to the plate, but her answers speak for themselves. It’s about stepping up the level of progression and increasing the number of girls competing.”

“Sarah worked really hard at getting female skiing where it is,” says Bushfield. “If the majority wants it, well then that’s what should happen, but I would hate the girls to not be able to do an event because there isn’t a separate course. I just don’t want anything that Sarah did to move backwards. I don’t know if Sarah wanted smaller jumps. She wanted the sport to progress to the best level it could. Maybe that’s not necessarily smaller jumps, maybe that’s just safer jumps.”

Jump Size and Separate Takeoffs

At the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships in Voss, Norway, the jumps were 82, 72 and 65 feet. Even Keri Herman, who has an affinity for large jumps, says some contest jumps are just too big. “We don’t need 80-foot jumps,” says Herman. “Big jumps are badass, but yes, having smaller jumps is going to help us not be afraid and try new things. For contest jumps, there needs to be a happy medium that we can all safely ski.”

Keri Herman at Keystone, CO. Photo by Nate Abbott.

Although some ski competitors promote a maximum jump size, Herman says standardizing anything in freeskiing takes away from the sport’s creativity. Dan Skivington, ski competition director for the Dew Tour agrees. “I think we should leave the free in freeskiing,” he says. “I believe the progression of the sport should never have rules on it.” If a compromise on jump size between the men and women can’t be reached, many female slopestyle skiers see the benefit in building alternative takeoffs—lips 10 or 15 feet closer—to make existing course features safer.

Chris Schuster, X Games ski sport organizer, sees a lot of the women successfully hitting the same size features as the guys. One of those competitors is Kaya Turski, who is able to land her entire run on the large features at X Games. But Turski says figuring out her speed in changing conditions is one of her biggest challenges. “Sometimes the jumps are fine in perfect weather, but introduce some wind and snow and often we just can’t clear it like the guys can,” she says. “It’s not an issue of talent, it’s purely because of our weight.”

Tiril Sjåstad Christiansen at Keystone, CO. Photo by Nate Abbott.

Jacob Wester is an advocate of separate courses. “It doesn’t make any sense denying that there are physical differences between the sexes, so why should women two-thirds the weight of some men have to hit the same jumps in a slopestyle course?” he asks. “Add in weather and other factors, and it can get straight up dangerous. The courses nowadays are built according to the standards of male athletes, which made sense 10 years ago, but we should know better by now.”

At one point, separate takeoffs were common. “The problem we ran into,” says Schuster, “was that it was a lot of time and money to make separate takeoffs, and at the end of day, they weren’t getting much use. The people who were winning weren’t using them and that’s why they kind of went away.”

“…What’s better, a good 9 on a small jump or a sketchy 5 on a bigger jump?”

As slopestyle skiing and snowboarding tricks have evolved, athletes appreciate wider jumps that facilitate different rotations and carving tricks. Skivington points to this as part of the difficulty of bringing back multiple takeoffs. “If [the jump] goes on skiers’ left and you carve in from the right, you have a problem,” he explains. “Is having the lip moved forward worth losing carving space?”

“I’ve always been in favor of a mandatory smaller jump size for the ladies,” says skiing icon, Mike Douglas. “Not because I don’t know there are girls who can handle it. For any sport to have longevity and for it to build, you have to do it safely. The best girl will win on a 55-foot or 75-foot table. I guarantee there are 10 girls who can do a stylish cork 7 on a 50-foot table but only three who can do one on a 75-foot table. That’s counterproductive to the progression of the sport.”

How separate takeoffs would affect judging criteria stirs up more controversy. “What’s better, a good 9 on a small jump or a sketchy 5 on a bigger jump?” asks Wint rhetorically. “You can’t judge people on different courses. If they were to build smaller lips, everyone would need to hit the small side.”

“I would be content having two takeoffs,” says Turski. “I don’t consider that an insult. If I ended my ski career without blowing four knees, I’d be happy. There’s talk of us losing money and support, but the more we progress [our skiing], the more our sport is going to get recognized. If we take one step back, we’ll take many steps forward.”

Anatomy and Progression

“Across sports, not just freeskiing, female athletes have a higher incidence of ACL rupture than males,” says Laura Tietjen, a physical therapist for the United States Ski & Snowboard Association. According to Tietjen, female athletes need greater hip strength to avoid the inward collapse of their knees because of something called Q Angle. This angle that extends from the widest part of the hip to the middle of the kneecap is much larger in females. The alignment of women’s knees may predispose them to ACL injuries, but other factors play in, including women’s increased hamstring flexibility and foot pronation and variations in the nerves and muscles that control the position of the knee. In addition, the female hormone estrogen may relax or allow stretching of the ACL.

Meg Olenick sees the direct correlation between injury and a flat rate of development. “Progression took a lull for two years,” she says. “There weren’t a ton of new tricks. Kaya was winning with the same run for three or four years.”

That, says Turski, affects the sport’s progression. “It’s such a small field already. If you take out 50 percent of the top girls, the women aren’t challenged. You won’t push yourself to risk injury and a whole season if you don’t need to.”

Lisa Zimmermann, Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis, AUS. Photo by Ethan Stone.

Despite the injury list, big things happened last year in women’s slopestyle skiing. At just 17 years old, German skier Lisa Zimmermann became the first female to land a double-cork 1260 in competition at the all-women’s Nine Queens big air contest in Austria. Zimmermann landed her double on a 55-foot jump. Additional contest firsts included British skier Katie Summerhayes landing a switch 1260 and Slovakia’s Zuzička Stromková putting down a rodeo 900.

Many of the women thought European X Games in Tignes, France, did it right. “The jumps were smaller than at any event all year and people were having a blast,” says Turski. “You had Mark McMorris and Torstein Horgmo still throwing their triples. Everyone did really well on that course. I tried some different rotations, and all the girls were stepping it up.”

Action

Jump size and separate takeoffs aside, Turski and Eliassen are adamant about safer contests when it comes to weather. “If it’s snowy or windy, you should still be able to make it through a course without casing anything or a contest should be canceled,” says Eliassen.

“There needs to be more drawing of the lines in terms of when to compete and when not to,” adds Turski. “You shouldn’t have to be lucky to make it through a course. We put thousands of hours into training, and then we have to sacrifice our bodies because they want the event to run at a certain time for TV.”

If female slopestyle skiers want reform, they are going to have to do more than talk about it. “My phone hasn’t rung once,” says Skivington. “If I was hearing from them, I’d be doing my best to do what they wanted. Anything can happen. Right now, I don’t have the female community asking for [separate takeoffs]. If I did, I’d start the conversation with [Dew Tour course builders] Snow Park Technologies and look into whether we could do this and if it makes sense.”

“I think it deserves attention and further discussion,” says Schuster. “An initial move would be for the girls to put something together and let the AFP know they want this broadly discussed with event organizers. There hasn’t been that kind of effort.”

Perhaps the ladies of skiing have been afraid to speak their minds. “It’s easy to talk about wanting smaller jumps, but to take action, you risk turning a large group of people—men and women—against you,” says Olenick. “I don’t know if any of the girls are willing to risk this in a small industry where having people against you is the last thing you want.”

But Raymond thinks it’s worth the risk, “Wouldn’t it be awesome to make the sport safer? To have no injuries this Olympic year, to have the full roster of women competing, to have girls throwing tricks people have never seen before in competition?”

Maude Raymond at Keystone, CO. Photo by Nate Abbott.

Back in Keystone, it’s day three of the shoot. Raymond and Herman continue hitting the 75-foot jump, while Christiansen watches from the side. As the sun sets over the Gore Range, we move back to the smaller step over jump that has a better backdrop. Both the skiers are dropping switch 5s and 7s with solid grabs as the flash pops against the colorful clouds. They’ve reacted to changing conditions to showcase their skiing, now it’s up to the sport to do likewise.

End Note:

Several days before this article went to print, Tiril Sjåstad Christiansen suffered a knee injury at a Red Bull training camp in Aspen, CO. After a number of successful landings on a 60-foot jump, Christiansen attempted a left nine. She naturally spins right. “I don’t know what happened. Everything was going good and I felt like I was skiing well,” says Christiansen. “I landed a little forward and my knee popped. I couldn’t even move.” Christiansen got an MRI at the Aspen Valley Hospital, which confirmed a torn ACL and meniscus damage. She was recently named to the Norwegian Olympic freeskiing team, however, and is on site in Sochi; whether she will be ready to compete remains to be seen. We wish her the best in a full recovery.

Olympic Issue Download: This information was originally presented in Freeskier’s special edition, 2014 Olympic issue, available on iTunes beginning January 14. The Olympic issue will also be available on newsstands, as of the same date.