Freeskiing Big Air -- which burst onto the scene as a demonstration sport during the '98 Summer X Games -- is drawing the young snowboarding crowd back to skis. This hybrid of freestyle skiing, aerials and snowboarding will be a medal sport for the first time at the Winter X Games.

But it's already found its own niche in the freestyle skiing community.

"The interesting thing is all of us started doing this type of skiing to get away from competition," Mike Douglas said Wednesday during the Big Air practice session. "To us, I think we treat this more like a show. Here's a chance to show skiers can really rip it up."

While freeskiing may have started as a way for World Cup freestyle skiers to relax, competitions have popped up all over the world. Thursday afternoon, Olympic gold medalist Jonny Moseley will be among the former and current world-renowned freestyle skiers competing in Freeskiing Big Air.

"One thing that's kind of cool is we are just kind of doing our thing and getting respect," Douglas said. "You hear the cheers from the snowboard side. How often do you hear the best snowboarders in the world cheering for skiers next to them?

"For me personally the best thing is how this style of skiing is giving respect again in the whole youth community. You don't have to be a skateboader or snowboarder to be cool anymore. You can actually throw on a pair of skis and be cool again."

The same young crowd that bought snowboards and threw their skis in the closet is now dusting off those same skis and learning a new way to have fun with two boards on their feet.

What makes the sport of freeskiing so hot right now is its willingness to cater to the alternative scene. While it make have the look of World Cup aerials, some of the tricks being attempted actually come from snowboarding skills.

It's not uncommon to see 720s, back flips, rodeo flips and skiers grabbing a boot in the middle of a trick. And whereas aerial skiers can expect certain standards in ramps, landing areas and degrees of take-offs, Big Air ramps seldom are the same from one event to the other.

In their most recent event, the Jonny Moseley Invitational, these same freeskiers were going off two ramps instead of one. Landing areas can be hard-packed snow like the one here at Crested Butte, or soft powder.

The entire sport is based on the skiing usually seen in extreme skiing and snowboarding films. The tricks are learned, or invented, on ungroomed snow created by wind drifts. Or they simply are copied from the snowboarders doing big air and halfpipe tricks.

"Skiing was completely lame and that whole (snowboarding) image was what woke us up," Douglas said. "The snowboarders were having fun, they are doing lots of cool stuff. Let's start doing it."

The majority of the freeskiers have a freestyle background in moguls. Trace Worthington is in the minority, actually having trained in aerials before getting into freeskiing.

"Well you know, it's kind of weird, because the freestylers already have moguls and aerials," said J.F. Cusson, who won the King of the Hill halfpipe in Sweden and U.S. Open slopestyle last year. "It's what freestyle used to be, a lot of fun. We were always getting bored doing moguls, so we went in the backyard and build a kicker. That's why it's cool.

"This is what we used to do on our days off to get away and just have fun."

And it's always cool to have fun.