How to watch snowboard cross at the Winter Olympics: A guide to understanding and appreciating the sport

For the fourth time in Winter Olympic history, snowboard cross will be a featured freestyle snowboard event, and Team USA will send four men and four women to compete in the event. Making its Olympic debut in 2006, snowboard cross has grown in popularity, especially among younger athletes — more than half of the American freestyle delegates in Pyeongchang are under the age of 21.

Racing for the American men are Jonathan Cheever, Nick Baumgartner, Hagen Kearney, and Mick Dierdorff. Cheever was the only teammate to qualify through objective criteria, with the other three riders being named as discretionary picks. Baumgartner is the only racer with past Olympic experience, having competed in the last two Winter Games — although, his best finish was No. 20.

The women’s team is stacked heading into the 2018 games, especially with the return of legend Lindsey Jacobellis, who will compete in her fourth Winter Olympics. During the event’s debut in 2006, Jacobellis won a silver medal despite wiping out whole in the lead during the final race. She’s crashed out in the last two Olympics’ semifinal runs, but is still favored to medal in Pyeongchang.

It’s not just Jacobellis bringing experience to women’s snowboard cross group, Faye Gulini is preparing to compete in her third Olympic games. She finished fourth in Sochi in 2014, and is looking to snag a spot on the medal podium this time around. The rest of Team USA includes rookies Meghan Tierney and Rosie Mancari.

One of the best things about this event is that you don’t have to wait days in between heats to get to the finals. Running one right after another, you can settle in for a few hours of intense viewing, filled with both incredible tricks landed in spectacular fashion and wipe outs that you can feel from thousands of miles away.

Each heat consists of six snowboarders racing on a downhill course, and the top three finishers in each heat advance to the next round. The downhill course is inspired by motocross tracks and features jumps, banked turns, and rollers. With the various obstacles, there are some rules on the mountain, including automatic disqualification for any intentional contact by pushing or pulling, or anything else that might cause an opposing rider to slow down or fall. First one over the finish line in the medal round will claim gold — the event has occasionally had to rely on a photo finish to name a winner.

During each heat, the six riders wear different color bibs indicating their seeding/qualification run ranking. The top-ranked rider wears a red bib, with No. 2 wearing green, No. 3 blue, No. 4 yellow, No. 5 white, and No. 6 black. Riders get to choose which of the six starting gates they will use based on their ranking.

You just have to practice this one sentence, “Oh look, the rider wearing the red bib finished in the lead of their last heat.”

The women are the heroes for the United States in this event, and if you’re looking to put money on a medal winner, you should look no further than Lindsey Jacobellis and/or Faye Gulini. Both women are experienced riders and no stranger to the Winter Olympics. They have the experience to rise above the pressure of competing on the World’s biggest stage, and as they each inch closer to the end of their career, will look to claim a medal before hanging up their boots.

The United States hasn’t had the most success on the medal podium in this event, but it’s ultimately the grown-up version of racing your friends down a hill on a snow day, which is super “America.” The event gets three out of five bald eagles, because it’s not something everyone gets into, but people would still be mad if they didn’t include it in the Winter Olympics moving forward.