Go big or spin fast? Biomechanical deterministic models for snowboard halfpipe tricks performed at the Beijing 2022 Olympic winter games men's final

Abstract

In the Olympic snowboard halfpipe discipline, rotation is the key indicator of trick difficulty encouraging riders to perform multiple tricks involving a high amount of rotation in their runs. Therefore, this study explored the predictive capacity of angular velocity and airtime on the amount of rotation using deterministic models based on the performance parameters of the Men's Final at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games. IMU data and video recordings were used to determine the biomechanical performance parameters of 122 tricks performed by 12 riders with random intercept models being employed to develop the aforementioned deterministic models. The ratio between angular velocity and airtime at frontside/switch frontside was greater than 4:1, and at backside/switch backside it was close to 5:1. The coefficient of determination overall indicated a high level of fit, providing significant standardised estimates for all performance parameters investigated. The results showed that, regardless of the direction of rotation, angular velocity was the key performance indicator for increasing the amount of rotation, while airtime showed a comparably small influence. These results are important for coaches and riders in teaching and learning new skills as they indicate to focus more on rotation initiation than increasing jump height.