Freestyle Skiing

Freestyle skiing began in the 1930s, when Norwegian skiers began performing during alpine and cross-country training. Later, some non-competitive professional skiing exhibitions in the United States featured performances of freestyle skiing. Aerial skiing was developed in about 1950 by Stein Eriksen who was an Olympic gold medalist. After that, organized freestyle skiing started in the mogul fields, and it allowed skiers to show off with tricks, jumps and incredible turning abilities. In 1971 Heavenly Valley,dick California hosted a mogul competition, which is the most challenging mogul runs in the country. With the time as the sport quickly evolved, some hot-shot mogul skiers like John Clendenin, Scott Brooksbank, Bill O'Leary and "Airborne" Eddie Ferguson gave rise to the sport.  In that year, two competing freestyle organizations have been established, Professional Freestyle Associates (PFA) run by Curtis Oberhansly and the International Freestyle Skiers Association (IFSA) run by Bernie Weichsel.

Under PFA and IFSA, the world's best freestyle skiers competed for prize money basically in three disciplines - moguls, aerials and ballet in competitions in the United States, Canada and Europe.