An event featuring high-flying acrobatics on skis, aerials is a traditional freestyle skiing discipline that officially has been part of the Winter Olympics since 1994. The addition of a mixed team event at Beijing 2022 brought an exciting new twist, and the United States will be motivated to defend its gold medal in that event at the Milan Cortina Winter Games.
Read on to learn nearly everything there is to know about aerials, including the scoring breakdown, judging criteria and competition format for Milan Cortina 2026.
What to know about other disciplines: Halfpipe | Slopestyle | Big Air | Moguls/Dual Moguls | Ski Cross
What aerials events will take place at the 2026 Winter Olympics?
There will be a total of three aerial skiing events at Milan Cortina 2026. In addition to the individual men’s and women’s competitions, the mixed team event returns for a second straight Olympics.
What is the schedule for aerials at the 2026 Winter Olympics?
Aerial skiing competitions will take place on the following days at the Milan Cortina Games:
- Tuesday, Feb. 17 (Day 11): Women’s and men’s qualifying
- Wednesday, Feb. 18 (Day 12): Women final
- Thursday, Feb. 19 (Day 13): Men’s final
- Saturday, Feb. 21 (Day 15): Mixed team aerials
What are the quota limits for men’s and women’s aerials at the Olympics?
There are 25 quota spots each for men and women in aerials. Athletes who receive a quota spot are eligible to compete in the mixed team event if their country is participating.
What are the rules for Olympic aerials?
Athletes ski down a hill and launch themselves up into the air using a steep vertical kicker. While in the air, they execute a series of flips and twists.
Each maneuver has a degree of difficulty assigned to it, but skiers also are judged on three pieces of criteria: air, form and landing. The judged components are multiplied by the degree of difficulty to get the athlete’s score for each jump.
What is the competition format for individual aerials at the Olympics?
Men’s and women’s aerials are divided into a qualifying round and a series of final rounds.
How does the Olympic aerials qualifying round work?
The qualifying round consists of two jumps. At the end of the first jump, the top six skiers advance directly to the final. All remaining skiers take a second jump but are not allowed to repeat the same maneuver they did in the first jump.
At the end of the second jump, six more skiers advance to the final. Skiers can advance based on either their first- or second-jump score, whichever is higher.
Scores do not carry over to the final rounds.
How do the Olympic aerials final rounds work?
In Round 1 of the aerials final, all 12 skiers take two jumps each. Skiers cannot repeat the same maneuver. Results will be determined by each skier’s single best jump score, and the top six skiers move on to Round 2. Scores do not carry over.
In Round 2, each remaining skier takes one jump, and the scores from those jumps determine the final event results. Women are allowed to repeat a maneuver from Round 1, but men are not.
How is the start order determined for the Olympic aerials final rounds?
For Round 1 of the aerials final, the start order is the inverse of the qualification results, so the skier with the lowest ranking goes first and the top-ranked skier goes last. The start order is the same for both jumps in Round 1.
For Round 2, the start order is the inverse of the Round 1 results, so the top skier from Round 1 goes last.
How does the Olympic aerials mixed team event work?
At least eight countries are expected to compete in mixed team aerials. Each team consists of three athletes from the same nation. There must be at least one athlete of each gender on the team, but countries typically select two men and one woman.
There’s no qualifying round for mixed team aerials, but the final is broken into two rounds.
During Round 1, all three skiers take one jump, and the scores from those three jumps are added together to get each team’s cumulative score. The teams with the top four scores advance to Round 2. Scores do not carry over.
Round 2 uses the same format — all three skiers take one jump, and the scores from those three jumps are added together to get each team’s cumulative score. Unlike in the individual event, skiers are allowed to repeat the same jump they did in Round 1. The results from Round 2 determine the final event results.
How does the scoring work in Olympic aerials?
The scoring for aerials can be summed up in this formula: Component Scores x Degree of Difficulty = Total Score
There are three different components that are scored, each with its own weighting:
- Air (20%): Judges analyze the execution of the takeoff, as well as the height and distance of the skier’s jump
- Form (50%): Judges analyze the position of the body, skis, arms, hands, and/or poles while the skier is in the air. Points will be deducted for form breaks and for missing parts of their planned maneuver.
- Landing (30%): Judges look for a stable, balanced landing at the end of the maneuver. Points will be deducted for hand drags and other errors.
These components are evaluated individually by a panel of five judges, and the highest and lowest scores for each component are dropped.
The remaining scores from those three components are added together — 30.0 points is the maximum a skier can receive — and then multiplied by the maneuver’s degree of difficulty to get the total score for that jump.
A degree of difficulty is assigned to every possible maneuver in aerials. Skiers can only perform maneuvers that are included on the allowed list, and they must declare what maneuver(s) they’re attempting before they compete.
What deductions can occur during an aerials jump?
Ways that an aerial skier can lose points for a jump include:
- The skier pops off the ramp either too early or too late
- The skier’s form starts too early (for example, they begin a twist while still on the kicker)
- The skier’s trajectory through the air is too high or too low
- The skier misses parts of a planned maneuver
- The skier has a form break during their maneuver (for example, their legs or skis are apart)
- The skier drags their hand during the landing
- The skier is imbalanced during the landing
- The skier lands with a slap back (their back bounces off the snow during the landing)
If a skier does not correctly execute the planned number of twists or flips, they will receive a DNF (did not finish) for that jump.
What are the most difficult maneuvers in aerials?
Quintuple-twisting triple flips are among the most difficult maneuvers currently performed in men’s aerials. There are several different types of quintuple-twisting triple flips, but the one with the highest degree of difficulty attempted at the 2025 World Championships was a “full, triple full, full.” In other words, the skier performs three flips, with one twist on the first flip, three twists on the second flip, and one twist on the third flip.
In women’s aerials, a “full, full, full” — three flips with one twist in each flip — was the highest-degree-of-difficulty trick attempted at the 2025 World Championships. In 2017, Ashley Caldwell became the first woman to land a quadruple-twisting triple flip known as “The Daddy.”
What are the differences between big air skiing and aerials?
Aerials is considered a more traditional freestyle skiing event, while big air is a new-school discipline that falls under freeskiing. There is no crossover between the two disciplines.
Aerials is more regimented, as skiers must choose from a list of allowed maneuvers, each of which has a degree of difficulty assigned to it, ahead of time. Within each flip, the skier does a pre-determined number of twists, and the number of twists done during each flip can vary throughout the course of one jump.
Big air, on the other hand, gives skiers the freedom to do whatever they want. In fact, athletes are encouraged to try tricks that never have been done before or to put their own unique spin on existing tricks. The trick freedom in big air skiing includes the ability to take off or land backward (known as switch), something that is not allowed in aerials.
Big air skiers are expected to grab their skis during a trick, and making their tricks look as stylish as possible can improve their scores. Aerial skiers, however, try to remain straight at all times and use their arms to help control their rotation and maintain form.
Furthermore, the ramps in aerials launch the skier straight up into the air, while the jumps in big air allow skiers to cover longer, horizontal distances.
As a result of all this, the tricks executed in aerials and big air are nothing alike. The events also have different competition formats and different rules for judging and scoring.