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"\n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\n\n\nIf you've been paying any attention at all to the Sochi Olympics, you may have heard about something called \"slopestyle.\" Unless you are a teenage boy who is really into the X Games, you were probably like, \"WTF is that?\" It turns out that at least one Olympian feels the same way! Read on for a brief explanation of the newest and most x-treme Olympic event (but not dumbest\u00A0\u2014 that's Team Figure Skating).What it is: Slopestyle is skiing or snowboarding on a downhill obstacle course. The obstacles include rails, jumps, and boxes, and participants can navigate them however they choose. Judges award scores based on the creativity and difficulty (read: insanity) of the tricks that riders perform during their run. Slopestyle has been a popular sport at the Winter X Games for many years, but 2014 is the first year that it's an official Olympic event.\u00A0Why they added it: Because snowboarding is the only winter sport that the youth cares about, and if you can't get the youth on board, who is going to tweet about your Olympics?Blood on the snow: Before the Olympics even started, three people injured themselves on the course. Shaun White, America's very own Il Pomodoro Volante, jammed his wrist during a training session, and Merike Enne, a lady snowboarder from Finland, injured her left ankle. And Torstein Horgmo, a gold medal favorite from Norway, broke his collarbone after crashing during an attempted trick. The drinking game for the slopestyle telecast practically invents itself.Now let's hear from the professionals: Keri Herman, a U.S. freestyle skier who began her career in ice hockey (the totally chill sport where you need to have a good dentist on call at all times), was nice and succinct: \"Yikes!\" Sebastian Toutant, a Canadian snowboarder who is so good that Shaun White himself has complimented his skills, says, \"It's like jumping out of a building.\" Shaun White, who could become the first American man to win three Olympic gold medals in the same event, dropped out of slopestyle because \"the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me.\" Let's pause and really think about that statement for a minute: the potential risk of injury is too much for a guy whose actual job is to launch himself 25 feet into the air with nothing but a strip of wood and fiberglass strapped to his feet.In conclusion: If you like your Olympics with a side of face-planting, slopestyle is the event for you.Follow Eliza on Twitter.Photo credit: Getty ImagesRELATED ARTICLES:The 9 Craziest Things About Russia26 Figure Skaters Who Look Like They're Having Sex10 Boring Olympic Sports Improved by Animals"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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