Olympic Half Pipe Snowboarding Rules

Considered an extreme sport in its infancy, snowboarding is now considered a full-fledged Olympic sport and is featured not only in the Winter Olympic Games every four years, but also in the annual Winter X Games. Half pipe is the only Olympic snowboarding event that is judged on standard criteria rather than time.

  1. The course

    • The half pipe gets its name from the course's shape, a half-cylinder that looks like a pipe cut down its length. The half pipe is 100 to 150 meters long, 17 to 19.5 meters wide and, from floor to crown, has a height of 5.4 to 6.5 meters. The slope angle is 16 to 18.5 degrees. The course, naturally, is filled with packed snow.

    The basics

    • The goal of half pipe is for the snowboarder to perform complicated and acrobatic tricks, all while maintaining perfect form. To do this, the snowboarder uses the half pipe and its inclines to gather speed and perform those tricks. Most of those tricks take place above the walls and feature jumps, twists and rotations set to music chosen by the snowboarder. The snowboarder must perform the routine moving from one end of the half pipe (the starting line) to the other (finish line).

    Judging

    • Five judges are stationed at the finish line so they can have a clear view of the program. The judges form their scores based on a standard set of criteria, including overall impression of the routine, technical merit, the height of tricks, rotation, falls and standard air. Each competitor receives a score from 0 to 10 from each judge.

    The format

    • Each snowboarder receives two runs in the preliminaries, with the best score used to determine the 12 snowboarders who will move on to the finals. In the finals, each rider receives two runs, with the better score counting toward the final result.