How Hard Is Olympic Halfpipe Skiing, Really? Sports Journalist Finds Out
The Olympics are strange in that, watching from the comfort of your couch, it’s possible to naively assume that whatever the athletes are doing isn’t hard.
The curling looks like no big deal. The alpine racing, at least in those moments that it doesn’t involve hair raising crashes, seems straightforward. You just go down, right? And then there’s the freestyle skiers and snowboarders. Their tricks are so impeccable you might guess that they’re hardly thinking about what they’re doing.
Well, they might not be, thanks to muscle memory.
But that’s the thing about the Olympics, and any elite sporting event, for that matter. Off-screen are the hours, days, months, and years the athletes spend honing their craft. To even qualify for the Olympics, you have to be among the world’s best at what you do. Then, once you get there, you’re competing against the other best athletes in the world.
Still, with our potato chips in hand, we sometimes critique Olympic performances, smugly thinking to ourselves I wouldn’t make that mistake. It’s the classic sports fan dynamic.
The reality of it all is hilarious and stark, which was highlighted by Ariel Helwani, a Canadian journalist known for his coverage of combat sports. As any good reporter should, he opted to try out the Olympic halfpipe himself after being given the chance.
Before dropping in, Helwani admits that he’s been skiing five or six times. The expectations are made clear early: this isn’t going to be a gold-medal-winning run.
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What follows is a lesson in Olympic athleticism.
After struggling in the middle of the pipe, Helwani takes another spill by crashing into a structure at the bottom. The pipe is steeper than it looks. For mere mortals without ski experience, making it down without a spill—let alone catching air off those towering walls—is a feat.
For those curious about watching the professionals do their thing in the halfpipe, the men’s ski competition kicks off on February 20. The women are set to drop on February 21.
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