This article was taken from the March 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
If your Winter-Olympics meh has been frozen in place ever since you watched curling in 2010, we've got good news. Slopestyle, a new freestyle skiing/snowboard event in which riders fly through an obstacle course, will blow the broom right out of your hand. Unlike other events based on speed or a specific course design, slopestyle is about originality -- the tricks that athletes can manage on courses that change with each competition. That's the challenge facing Sochi course designer Anders Forsell. "We try to create something that offers as many options as possible," he says of the 550-metre run. Forsell generally visits sites in summer to examine the terrain. Then he uses AutoCAD software to design the slope and jumps, which he usually builds first with dirt, before snowcats push the white stuff into place.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
