Shaun White has been dominating headlines for almost a decade now, but the world of freestyle snowboarding—and skiing for that matter—is so much bigger than he is.

With new events, skiing and snowboarding slope style and skiing half pipe in the Winter Olympics this year, the world might just find that out.

These Winter X-Games staples are some of the most intense and exciting events at the Winter Olympics with athletes literally flying through the air.

Here’s what to watch for at the Winter X-Games this week and the Winter Olympics next month.

Half Pipe:

It’s the event that people will be the most used to since snowboarders have been riding the pipe for the last two Olympics.

Riders travel up and down 20-foot walls of a cut-in-half pipe performing spins and flips 20 feet above the walls in the air.

Snowboarding:

In the men’s competition, it’s rather obviously Shaun White’s competition to lose at this point. He won the gold in each of the last two Olympics and has won the last six Winter X-Games crowns, though he is skipping the games this year to focus on Sochi.

He also won the most recent Olympic qualifier and here’s a link to his impressive winning run.

White also has the largest amplitude and performs the most difficult tricks though his biggest threats, fifteen old Ayumu Hirano and Russian Iouri Podladtchikov (I-Pod), are not far behind.

Hirano came out of nowhere last year to finish second behind White at the X-games as a fourteen year old.

I-Pod can now throw down the trick—the double McTwist 1260—that White won the gold with back in Vancouver in 2010.

Both athletes are pushing the boundaries of the sport, developing double cork 1440’s—spinning four complete rotations and going upside down twice—in their runs.

Overall, it’s going to be a crazy time with a bunch of double corks.

Skiing:

After two Winter Olympics of snowboarding in the pipe, the skiers finally join the party and like the snowboarders, there is going to be a lot of air and many double corks.

The favorites are Americans David Wise and 18-year-old Torin Yater Wallace while Frenchman Kevin Rolland is a favorite too.

Wise won the last two Winter X-Games while Wallace has been on the podium each of the last three years with two silvers and one bronze. Rolland has also had success with two Winter X-Games golds for himself as well.

Wise excels over the rest of field with the difficulty of his tricks. He pulls a number of switch (backwards) and alley-oop (spinning up the pipe instead of down) tricks that are harder to do than a standard double cork.

Slope Style:

Slope style may be new to the Winter Olympics, but it’s been a main part of the Winter X-Games for years now. The event is a series of jumps and rails that resemble a run through a terrain park.

Most riders and skiers are fairly comparable at the rail sections so look for the best in the air to win. The gold medal is likely going to take a triple cork in both disciplines with many skiers and snowboarders landing triples on the smaller slope style jumps this past year.

Men’s Snowboarding:

Unlike in the halfpipe, Shaun White is the one trying to catch up to the other boarders in slope style.

Who is White chasing? The Canadian Mark McMorris. McMorris has won the last two slope style golds at the Winter X-Games and silvered the year before that. He has some of the biggest tricks in the air as he also is a big air specialist. He was the only one who landed a triple cork last year in the competition.

There’s still promise for White however. After finishing thirteenth in 2012, he finished fifth last year and recently won an Olympic qualifier at Mammoth Mountain in California.

Men’s Skiing:

Expect to see the first triple cork landed in competition at the Winter X-Games this weekend. American and favorite Nick Goepper already landed one perfectly in practice.

Goepper won this event in last year’s Winter X-Games and silvered the year before that.

Also look out for American Bobby Brown who has a slope style gold to his name and likely has a triple cork of his own as well.

The most unique trick award may go out to Henrik Harlaut who has a number of nose butter spins in his repertoire. A nose butter means he will start spinning on the snow even before he goes off the jump.

Last year at the X-Games, his nose butter double cork 1260 helped him win silver in slope style and his nose butter triple cork 1620 won him the gold in Big Air and is probably the best trick ever done.