Freeskiing
The groundbreaking tricks that changed Freeski Big Air forever
From the first 720 to today’s record-breaking 2340s, Freeski Big Air has evolved through a series of boundary-breaking moments, charting a timeline of courage, creativity and anti-physics.
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When it comes to sporting prowess, daring and flat-out feats full of swagger and style, few disciplines beat big air skiing. Each attempt offers just a single chance at success and countless opportunities for failure. But, get it right, and big air athletes have the chance to change not only the rulebook, but the sport itself.
Those rules are simple. Each athlete has three runs at a massive jump, aiming to not only get as much air as they can, but pull off the most mind-stretching tricks in the process, before landing it all perfectly. This isn’t just three chances to nail one trick, though, points are awarded from the two best runs, for two different tricks, which only adds to the pressure.
As time has progressed, the architects of these all-out manoeuvres have pushed the sport to bigger and bolder heights. From the first 720 to today’s dizzying 2340s, the discipline’s story is written in rotations, risk and reinvention. Here, we chart the tricks that changed everything and the moments when the world’s best athletes flipped the concepts of physics, style and courage on their heads.
01
The birth of big air
Big air has come a long way in the past couple of decades
© Mattias Fredriksson/Red Bull Content Pool
Both ski and snowboard big air are pretty new in terms of Olympic representation, but athletes have been pushing themselves to take on bigger and longer jumps since the dawn of their sports. As in surfing, as in skateboarding, climbing and pretty much any extreme discipline, ‘go big or go home’ remains the pervading mantra.
Yet Big Air is the purest of them all, with one jump to decide your fate, and gravity waiting to bring you back down to earth split seconds later. The 720 – that’s two full rotations - has been a part of the sport ever since someone landed the first 540 and sought to go just that little bit further.
One of the first recorded 720s was pulled off by French skier Candide Thovex, a legend of the late ‘90s and early 2000s. He nailed a D-spin 720 with an off axis rotation over Chad’s Gap, a natural gap in Utah. Having spent an entire day slamming into a snow pile, Thovex returned the following day and nailed the trick.
The first athlete to land it in a major comp was JF Cusson (also the inventor of the 360 mute grab), who nailed an unnatural (right side) switch 720 at the 1999 X Games. Cusson was part of a group of Canadian skiers who called themselves “the New Canadian Air Force,” and their style was dubbed ‘New School Skiing’. As an Outside magazine article from 1999 notes, their style, including Cusson’s 720, inspired the development of a new type of ski. This would be the twin-tip ski, still the norm today.
(Ironically, it would be a decade until Jake Brown landed the first 720 in vert skateboarding, followed immediately by one of the sport’s biggest crashes. Thankfully, Brown was OK.)
Thanks to Thovex and Cusson, the 720 had become the foundational trick for aspiring skiers, and naturally, once they’d mastered it they wanted to push forward to the 900, the 1080 and beyond.
02
How the Double Cork changed everything
Mathilde Gremaud nails the first-ever woman's Switch Double Cork 1440
© Dom Daher/Red Bull Content Pool
The Double Cork is a hugely complex and technical freestyle skiing trick with two off-axis flips. The likes of Jon Olsson and Mike Wilson had developed the foundations in the mid-2000s by innovating on the very concepts of what flips and spins could be. In particular, Olsson’s Kangaroo and DJ flips set the foundation for what the modern double cork could be.
Their work was picked up by the likes of TJ Schiller and Bobby Brown who took the trick and ran with it, adding in a greater number of spins and making the trick what it is today – a must have in any elite athlete’s arsenal.
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Mathilde Gremaud lands the world's first female Switch Double Cork 1440
Checkout the moment freeskier Mathilde Gremaud lands the world's first female Switch Double Cork 1440.
By the early 2010s the trick was no longer a novelty, but an absolute essential tool for entry into the biggest competitions like the X Games. Athletes continues to innovate, including Mathilde Gremaud who made history when she landed the first Switch Double Cork 1440 in 2020, becoming the first woman to do so.
“When I landed the trick I couldn’t believe it,” Gremaud said. “I was on my feet and I couldn’t keep my arms down, I was just like, ‘yeah!’”
With Ski Big Air debuting in Beijing 2022, the Double Cork continues to be unleashed and innovated upon on the world’s largest stage .
03
Triples, quads and the rise of technical chaos
Fabian Bösch sends it over Stubai
© Kyle Meyr
Bear with us here, as things are starting to get crazy. No longer are big air skiers content with quaint tricks like the 720, as we build towards the early 2010s, it’s all about bigger and better. And right now, that means technical chaos and triple, even quadruple, spins…
Crucial to this period was the invention of the airbag in 2005. It’s exactly what it sounds like, a massive bag of gas that skiers can land on when practising tricks in doors. It helps boost confidence and help them eliminate any wrinkles when the stakes are relatively minor. Gremaud has said that nailing the Switch Double Cork 1440 on an airbag let her know she could pull it off on the snow.
Big air legends started dropping the first Triple Corks in the early 2010s and as with anything it was at first amazingly rare, but soon became standard fare. Enter the Quadruple Flip, and Fabian Bösch.
Watch Bösch innovating again with a huge Double Front Flip:
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Fabian Bösch throws a Double Front Flip on a ski jumping hill
He can't. He won't. Yes, he has! Watch Fabian Bösch leverage gravity to land a Double Front Flip on the vertiginous Gross-Titlis-Schanze ski jump in Switzerland.
Swiss skier Bösch was in training for the X Games 2019 when he landed the the first-ever quadruple flip on skis, in the form of a a Quadruple Cork 1980 (comprised of four off-axis flips with five full rotations). Bösch had previously perfected the triple and knew he could get more out of the sliver of airtime he had left.
"Quad Cork 19 to kick off 2019! Stoked to add another NeverBeenDoneBefore trick to my inventory,” Bösch wrote on his Facebook page alongside a video of the trick.
Like melting ice in the sun, Bösch’s headstart didn’t last long. By the time the X Games touched down in Aspen, multiple athletes were integrating quads into their arsenals.
04
When style caught up to spin count
Is it a bird? No, just Henrik Harlaut doing his thing
© Judith Bergström/Red Bull Content Pool
Style is subjective, but with so many big air skiers pushing for more and more rotations, the tide began to turn back the other way, with a new emphasis on flair and finesse over just flinging yourself into a corkscrew.
There’s a tactical reason too, style is a key part of the judging criteria, with a clean and controlled performance highly rewarded. In fact, simple tricks with style can easily beat a more complex one with more rotations. A simple trick, done well and with near-perfect style beats a ‘bigger’ trick with poor execution every day of the week.
Henrik Harlaut, the most decorated skier in X Games history, knew the importance of style, with a relaxed and fluid style helping him bring home tricks like the ‘Cuban grab.’ Colby Stevenson is also renowned for smooth and consistent skiing, whether he’s pulling off difficult grabs or flips, there’s something apparently effortless about what he does.
While style has by no means replaced spin count as the main focus across Big Air, the emphasis has swung towards not only doing something impressive, but doing it as well as an athlete can in recent years, which only serves to sharpen skills – and expectations across Big Air.
05
Which athletes drove the progression?
A number of legendary freeskiers have been pushing Big Air evolution from the very start while wearing the iconic Red Bull helmet.
Jon Olsson has more than a few tricks to his name
© Mattias Fredriksson/Red Bull Content Pool
Jon Olsson, the Swedish maverick, is renowned for progressive Big Air tricks, like the Kangaroo Flip, the DJ Flip, and the Tornado. Back in 2003 his innovation earned him the title of Red Bull Big Air champion.
22 min
Simon Dumont
Paddy goes to Austria to find out how Simon Dumont’s results-oriented approach is the key to his success.
Simon Dumont is one of the most decorated freeskiers of his era. He’s a multi-sport beast with achievements in both big air and halfpipe before becoming a race car driver.
Meanwhile, Gremaud is among the best very skiers riding today. At just 25 she’s pushed the boundaries of big air beyond what was previously thought capable, making history a few times to become the one of the most decorated athletes in women's freestyle, and returning in 2025 to dominate the sport.
Mathilde Gremaud and Tess Ledeux regularly share podiums
© Kyle Meyr/Red Bull Content Pool
Tess Ledeux is following in Gremaud’s footsteps, winning her first X Games silver at the age of 15 (!) alongside a World Championship slopestyle gold. Her first big air win came soon after and she has many more ahead of her.
Another skier with a claim on the title of 'best currently doing it' is Eileen Gu. The Chinese-American star is largely known for her relentless accumulation of contest points, trophies and records (she's the first freeskier to win three medals at a single Olympics, she's won more FIS Freeski World Cups than anyone else… the list goes on). However, she's not just a contest monster; in 2022 Gu became the first woman to stick a Forward Double Cork 1440. If you want to know more about her - and there is a lot more to know - check out her episode of Winter Heroes.
Markus Eder enjoys some air
© Blake Jorgenson/Red Bull Content Pool
Italian Markus Eder broke out after winning the Nine Knights contest in 2010. Since 2014 he’s focused on filmmaking, with documentaries like Drop Everything and The Ultimate Run continuing to inspire the next generation of freestyle skies.
06
The era of the 2160
Alex Hall introduced the world to the 2160 in 2022
© Amy Jimmerson/Jackson Hole Mountain Resort/Red Bull Content Pool
Alex Hall is a badass slopestyle skier, renowned for ‘tap dancing’ along a rail. He’s also a pretty crazy force in big air, as evidenced by him landing the first-ever switch 2160 at the X Games in 2022. For clarification that’s six full spins. It makes the 720 look almost cute by comparison and supercharged the sport. “Alex Hall is doing it. No way! Was that a 2160? Did he just go to the future?” a commentator asked watching history unfold in real time. (Incidentally, Hiroto Ogiwara landed snowboarding’s first-ever 2160 the same year).
“For me, it is just a personal thing,” Hall said of the 2160 in a recent interview. “I remember watching videos of myself doing these really hard, big spins and thinking it just didn’t look good. Not pleasing to the eye. So, I told myself that I would push my skiing in a different direction.” Again, it’s that idea of style over spins. “I’ve been going that way ever since, still trying hard tricks, but hard tricks don’t necessarily need to involve lots of spins,” Hall says. “You can execute a hard trick many different ways, whether it’s a creative trick or just one that isn’t seen very often.”
Listen to Hall and it seems like physics has taken us as far as it can and it’s time for Big Air progression to come back down to earth. But wait a minute, didn’t Miro Tabanelli just blow the game wide open landing a 2340 (six-and-a-half rotations) at the X Games in Aspen in January 2025? (“I’m nauseous,” was Tabanelli’s post-trick comment). Maybe we’re not quite done testing the limits of physics – or fear – just yet, as long as our stomachs can handle it…
Miro Tabanelli added an extra half rotation to dial things up to 2340
© Jan Cadosch/Red Bull Content Pool
Oh, and by the way, one-man-progression-machine Ogiwara also landed snowboarding's first 2340 at the same event.
07
What comes next? Beyond rotation
As we’ve seen, this brings us to a bit of a fork in the road in terms of Freeski Big Air tricks. Records are continuing to be broken, with crazy rotations being originated at a steady pace. And can you imagine the first spectators to see a 720 seeing a 2340 today? It’s mind boggling.
The truth is, Freeski Big Air is more popular than ever, and is reaching a greater audience than ever before thanks to the X Games and its recent inclusion in other international competitions watched by everyone, not just ski fans. This drives money and innovation. The future, really, is wide open and new talent is being inspired every day. What’s the future of Freeski Big Air? Watch this space.
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