Although winter sports have always been present, acroski has been practised since 1930. Freestyle skiing became a competitive sport in the United States in the 1960s, evolving from hotdog skiing. It could be said that the father of this sport is Norwegian Stein Eriksen, medalist at the 1952 Oslo Olympics - gold in giant slalom and silver in slalom. After these Olympics, Eriksen focused on acroski and created a show featuring aerial jumps, for which he charged $1,000.
The first freestyle competition was organised in 1966 by Peter Pinkham, taking place in Attitash, New Hampshire. Nearly 40% of the event consisted of compulsory figures, while the remainder was called freestyle or free skiing. A new sport was emerging, which would take this name.
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By the mid-70s, its practice had become quite popular. At that time, freestyle was known as hotdogging, and practitioners were divided into two camps: those favouring organisation and those defending its wild image. But soon lawsuits began arising from accidents - particularly seriously injured athletes - and insurance companies turned their backs on freestyle, leading to a major decline in the 1980s.
In 1979, the FIS (International Ski Federation) recognised freestyle as a skiing discipline, and in 1983 the first World Cup trials were held in the United States. In 1986, the first World Championship took place in Tignes (France).
These world championships were organised just in time to qualify skiing disciplines like freestyle as demonstration sports at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. The moguls discipline became Olympic in 1992, and aerials in 1994.
