Freeride Added To 2030 Olympic Winter Games

The IOC has today announced a swathe of decisions ahead of the Alpes 2030 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in the French Alps.

Among the announcements are that the next Winter Games will have gender neutrality for the first time, with skiing one of the sports moving up to 50% female competitor participation. The threatened Parallel Snowboard competition has been saved although Nordic Combined, which has been in the Winter Olympics since the first Games in Chamonix in 1924 has been axed. The IOC have also said in the wider context of global instability, they're going to allow Russian athletes to compete again.

For freeride, a discipline that grew from a handful of legendary alpine faces into a worldwide movement, the Olympic stage is the next horizon.

Freeride has experienced rapid international growth, benefitting from a strong youth fanbase and visually spectacular competition. It uses a natural field of play, which minimises its impact on the Games. Comprising four events, it will provide an Olympic opportunity for 44 athletes (22 women and 22 men) to compete at the Games for the first time. Freeride started in the 1990s to develop as a discipline, the IOC noted in a press statement.

"It's a moment of joy for the entire freeride community, and the result of three decades of commitment and dedication alongside an incredible team. My first thoughts go to the riders, from those who first believed in this discipline and helped build it, to the young athletes who can now dream of an Olympic medal. I think too of the organizers and everyone who has grown this sport over the years, and of all the partners who trusted us throughout the journey," commented Nicolas Hale-Woods, Founder and CEO, FIS Freeride World Tour.

A freestyle skiing mixed team ski cross and a mixed team snowboard parallel event are also being added for 2030.

Ski Mountaineering (SkiMo) will also see men’s individual and women’s individual events as well as men’s sprint, women’s sprint and mixed relay events.

Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom Retained

When approving the Milano Cortina 2026 sports programme in 2022, the IOC decided to closely monitor the performance of snowboard parallel giant slalom (PGS), considering challenges observed in past editions of the Games from a participation and audience engagement perspective. This move led to concern the event could be axed.

During every Games edition, the IOC conducts a global study covering all Olympic Winter Games sports, disciplines and events across key markets on all five continents. The evaluation during Milano Cortina 2026 measured 14 popularity indicators across broadcast coverage, digital media, general public interest, ticketing and press, involving up to 50+ markets per indicator.

The IOC noted that PGS – as part of the discipline of snowboard – had demonstrated significant improvement since Beijing 2022 across a number of popularity indicators. It was therefore decided to retain the PGS events on the Alpes 2030 programme, provided that they will not have a standalone field of play.