There is Olympic gold in the air up there, but many of these daredevils aren't huge fans

LIVIGNO, Italy — Ask freestyle skier Colby Stevenson if he likes big air, the most high-flying event in a sport full of them, and his answer is short and to the point.

“No,' he said. ”I have no real use for it."

Which makes him pretty much like a lot of his action-sports brethren — all of them adrenaline junkies — who will grace the 50-meter-high hill (165 feet) built on a scaffolding at the Winter Olympics in Livigno over the next two weeks.

The one key exception: Stevenson is the defending Olympic champion.

“I felt like I was going to war that morning,” Stevenson said of what goes down as the crowning athletic achievement of his career. “I was trying a trick I had never done and I was just like, ’I’m either going to land this, or go away in an ambulance.'”

The Olympics added this event to the snowboard program in 2018, then the freestyle skiing schedule four years after that. The thought was that asking a few hundred athletes to hurl themselves up to 20 meters (65 feet) in the air, then try to land after completing somewhere between three and six spins and flips, would make for great viewing in person and on TV. Which it does.

It's also dangerous, and the stakes were brought into stark focus during training Wednesday night when one of Canada's greatest snowboarders, Mark McMorris, had to be carried off the mountain on a stretcher after a nasty fall. Canadian officials said McMorris wasn't badly injured, though he pulled out of Thursday night's qualifying round with hopes of getting ready for slopestyle on Feb. 16.

McMorris' three Olympic bronze medals all came in slopestyle — which is big air's more stylistic and arguably less-dangerous cousin.

Last month in an interview with The Associated Press, McMorris was asked what the point of big air really was: “It’s an event that, you see it, and you just go ’Wow!'” he said.

Slopestyle qualifiers automatically on the start list for big air, too

Because the number of athletes at the snowpark was getting out of hand, organizers decided they would place anyone who qualified for slopestyle — which incorporates big jumps into a longer, more technical contest — into the big air event as well. The AP's informal survey of about a dozen riders in the leadup to the Games all ended with the same conclusion: They got into the sport for slopestyle; doing big air is part of the deal.

“Look for people approaching things in different ways, people thinking outside the box, and then look for individuality,” said freeskier Alex Hall, when asked what people should appreciate about his sport.

It's more possible in slopestyle. Hall's winning run in China four years ago goes down as one of the most original in the sport's history — a daring mix of jumps off the sides of the kickers, instead of straight-on, and vertebrae-testing twists that changed direction in midair.

“Everyone’s going to be trying things differently, and just appreciate that,” he said.

Air vs. style: The never-ending debate in action sports

The debate surrounding big air infiltrates pretty much every corner of a sport that wrestles with the need to “go big” vs. the innate desire of these athletes to show they are more than acrobats on snow.

Eileen Gu, the freeski star who won gold in big air and silver in slopestyle at the last Olympics, said, “Yeah, slopestyle,” when asked which event she preferred. She wasn't surprised to have so much company.

“I've only competed in big air twice at a World Cup level,” Gu said. “As far as the reason I'd expect that to be the answer is that slopestyle embodies the essence of the sport. It offers the opportunity for an individual to highlight a multiplicity of skills.”

While slopestyle is art on a canvas, big air is theatre in the round, its surge underpinned by the idea that you can build a hill almost anywhere and bring the high-flying flips off the mountain and into the city. Fenway Park and the Rose Bowl have hosted big air contests. In 2018, when the event debuted at the Olympics in South Korea, organizers brought the snowboarders off the mountain, closer to the main Olympic cluster.

More notably, Beijing four years ago held big air on the site of a reclaimed steel mill. Skiers and snowboarders flew in front of a tableau of skyscrapers and an out-of-commission smokestack. It was a Chinese example of urban renewal; the property also served as the headquarters for the country's Olympic organizing committee.

Not this time

There was no such plan for these games. Livigno is five hours from Milan by train and bus. Instead, workers built the massive scaffolding adjacent to the slopestyle course and the halfpipe. Skiers and snowboarders use an elevator to get to the top, snap on their gear and hold their breath.

About the only technical requirement in this event is that they spin in different directions on at least two of their three jumps. Other than that, stomp a good landing and may the most spins win.

Ollie Martin, the 17-year-old U.S. snowboarder who became the first rider to land jumps with 2,160 degrees of spin in both directions, could end up bringing one of those massive tricks to the big air final, set for Saturday.

Truth be told, he said he'd be just as happy getting oohs and aahs for what he does on the slopestyle course. He has been on podiums in both events over the past two winters. Does he like big air?

“I do,” he said. “Just less than slopestyle.”