Jakara Anthony (left) in action competing in the dual mogul event in Alpe d'Huez, France, in December 2021.
Last Friday the IOC Executive Board online meeting in Lausanne (SUI) has announced that three FIS events will join the Olympic Winter Games programme for Milano-Cortina 2026 (ITA).
The additional FIS events for the next OWG in Italy are both women’s and men’s dual moguls competitions as well as women’s ski jumping large hill event. The three new additions bring the total number of FIS medal events at the Olympic Winter Games to 58. In Beijing 2022, FIS staged 55 of the 109 medal events. The IOC Executive Board also added several non-FIS events to the 2026 Programme, including a skeleton mixed team event and luge doubles for both men and women. Ski mountaineering has been also added into 2026 OWG programme as an entirely new discipline.
While FIS is proud to have the new events on the 2026 Programme, other proposed events on both freestyle and snowboard side of things such as ski cross mixed team and snowboard mixed team parallel slalom were ultimately not approved by the IOC Executive Board.
The additional FIS events for the next OWG in Italy are both women’s and men’s dual moguls competitions as well as women’s ski jumping large hill event. The three new additions bring the total number of FIS medal events at the Olympic Winter Games to 58. In Beijing 2022, FIS staged 55 of the 109 medal events. The IOC Executive Board also added several non-FIS events to the 2026 Programme, including a skeleton mixed team event and luge doubles for both men and women. Ski mountaineering has been also added into 2026 OWG programme as an entirely new discipline.
While FIS is proud to have the new events on the 2026 Programme, other proposed events on both freestyle and snowboard side of things such as ski cross mixed team and snowboard mixed team parallel slalom were ultimately not approved by the IOC Executive Board.
The addition of women’s and men’s dual moguls to the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games programme comes hot on the heels of the thrilling debut of both freeski big air as well as aerials mixed team competition earlier this year at Beijing 2022 Games. Since moguls has been one of the most watched events at the past several games and taking into account a tremendous effort by the freestyle community to include the second mogul discipline into the Olympic programme, it was only a matter of time before dual moguls would also get the nod from the IOC.
Worth mentioning here is also the fact that moguls made its Olympic debut as a demonstration sport already back at Calgary 1988, while getting in the Olympic programme just four years later at Albertville 1992 OWG.
To include dual moguls into the OWG programme has been a very long-term plan by the freestyle skiing community, and it goes back all the way to the very first FIS Freestyle Ski World Championships in Tignes in 1986, where dual moguls was on the programme. Furthermore the event has been part of the FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup circuit since 1979 and has been consistently part of the World Championships programme since 1999.
Also for the first time under current structure the 2021/22 season saw women’s and men’s dual moguls crystal globes being awarded. And while there were already attempts for dual moguls crystal globes back between 1999 and 2003, the time was not quite right as the two events - moguls and dual moguls - were too similar in regulation and approach. Now with the development of duals, the introduction of the format starting with brackets from the beginning and the technical evaluation of the athletes, the timing was just perfect. Consequently the 2021/22 dual moguls World Cup campaig was highly competitive and extremly exciting to follow.
Dual moguls offers a thrilling head-to-head competition in a knock-out format, displaying immense intensity of competing side-by-side in a truly spectator friendly manner. And with the recent introduction of dual moguls into Olympic Winter Games programme and a promising 2022/23 World Cup calendar that includes as many as seven dual moguls events, there is a big opportunity to grow the sport even further.
“As a person, who has been involved in sport since 1978, and who’s first competition was in fact dual moguls event, this is quite an exciting day”, said FIS Assistant Race Director for Moguls & Aerials Konrad Rotermund, “It’s wonderful that as a sport of freestyle skiing have grown around us with slopestyle, halfpipe, ski cross, aerials, moguls and some of our team events as well, we’re finally getting what may be our most exciting event on the world’s biggest stage. It’s going to be one heck of a show in 2026”.
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