Winter Olympics 2014: Your guide to Freestyle skiing

6-21 Feb at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park

Marika Pertakhiya of Russia competes in the Ladies' Moguls Qualification (GETTY IMAGES)

What is it? Half-pipe and slopestyle make their debuts. The other events are moguls, aerials and ski cross. Four of the five are judged on jumps and tricks while ski cross is a race, a harum-scarum dash down a bumpy course. In half-pipe skiers use the banks down a U-shaped course – it literally resembles a pipe cut in half. In slopestyle the skiers head down a 565m course doing tricks over jumps and rails.

What do I need to know? Forget much of the detail, just enjoy the spectacle.

Tell me something I don't know Tony Dawson won mogul bronze for the US in 2006. He was adopted by a US couple from an orphanage after losing his parents in a market in South Korea. Friends of his real father saw him on TV and were struck by the similarity. A year later, father and son were reunited.

GB chances Good. Britain has never won a medal on snow; James Woods, Katie Summerhayes and Rowan Cheshire have a chance.

One to watch Hannah Kearney – the US mogul skier won in 2010 and is reigning world champion.