snowboarding
- Key People:
- Chloe Kim
- Shaun White
- Lindsey Jacobellis
snowboarding, winter sport with roots in skiing, surfing, and skateboarding where the primary activity is riding down any snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard with feet positioned roughly perpendicular to the board and its direction, further differentiating it from skiing, in which riders face forward. Moreover, no poles are used as in skiing, and the majority of participants wear not hard but soft- to mid-flexing boots for support. The sport developed in the 1960s and ’70s, grew in popularity in the 1980s, and became an Olympic sport in 1998. To die-hard riders and enthusiasts worldwide, including this author, snowboarding is a special kind of “medicine for the soul,” combining the beauty of nature, the thrill of competition, and the opportunity for self-expression. There is no single way to snowboard.
History of snowboarding
Snowboarding is believed to have originated in the United States. Though its origins are sketchy, and plenty of children and adults can claim to have stood up on a flat surface of some sort and slid down their local sled hill, there are several names, dates, and inventions that are agreed-upon highlights in the most common histories of the sport.
The precursor of the modern snowboard came about in 1965, when engineer Sherman Poppen of Muskegon, Michigan—the widely acknowledged “father of the snowboard”—invented the prototype that paved the way for the modern board. The “Snurfer” got its snappy name from Poppen’s wife, who neatly combined the two words that described the contraption’s purpose: surfing on snow. Poppen’s initial model was just two snow skis bolted together—he later attached a rope to the front for steering. No specialized boots or bindings were required.
Poppen built the primitive toy for his daughters, and the Snurfer’s popularity quickly spread beyond the inventor’s backyard, attracting the attention of the Brunswick Corporation, a sports equipment manufacturer, which licensed the Snurfer and began producing and distributing it nationwide. Local Michigan Snurfer competitions followed in the late 1960s and spread out to national competitions in the 1970s. The Snurfer’s success—approximately one million of them had been sold by the end of the ’70s—brought the idea of sliding sideways on snow to a whole new crop of inventors and pioneers, who took the concept and ran with it. The next big turning point came in 1975, when surfer Dimitrije Milovich’s new snowboard, the “Winterstick,” attracted the attention of Newsweek magazine.
The fanfare that accompanied these boards spawned still more refinements as well as many of the first snowboard companies. On the East Coast there was Burton Snowboards (founded by Jake Burton Carpenter); in California, Sims Snowboards (founded by skateboarder Tom Sims) and Barfoot Snoboards (founded by surfer Chuck Barfoot); and in Washington, Gnu Snowboards (founded by Mike Olson). These manufacturing pioneers organized the first official snowboard competitions, such as the first National Snow Surfing Championships (held at the historic Suicide Six ski resort in South Pomfret, Vermont, in 1982 and won by Burton’s team) and the first world championship halfpipe competition (held in Soda Springs, California, in 1983, which Tom Sims organized).
There was, however, no mainstream participation in or fan base for the sport at this time, and early competitors and manufacturers honed their skills and boards in relative isolation. Resembling ad hoc gatherings more than professional sporting events, these original competitions served as the breeding ground for the development of tricks and maneuvers that further refined the sport. Two years after the Soda Springs world championship, Sims stood in as Roger Moore’s stunt double for the snowboarding scenes in the James Bond movie A View to a Kill (1985). It was a breakthrough moment in the history of the sport that both reflected and, in turn, helped fuel snowboarding’s growing popularity.
At that time in the mid-1980s, however, few U.S. ski resorts allowed snowboarders on their hills (snowboarders, notably, were widely welcomed in France). This ban reflected the then widespread disdain that traditional skiers and the country-club class exhibited toward snowboarders. At the few resorts that did allow snowboarding, special competency tests were required of riders before allowing them on the slopes.
At the same time, snowboarding was attracting a whole new world of fans from the nonconformist skateboarding community. The grunge- and hip-hop-inspired style of dress of the typical snowboarder could hardly have been more different from the garb of the traditional ski resort, which only deepened the divide between skiers and the newcomers. The nontraditional aspect of the sport was clearly reflected in the title of snowboarding’s first magazine, Absolutely Radical, founded in 1985. Despite the blowback from the skiing community, the sport surged in popularity and acceptance, especially after insurance companies began allowing ski resorts to cover snowboarding under their existing liability policies.
While the sport battled for acceptance, major mainstream brands were investing in contest events, and the skiing community gradually acknowledged snowboarding’s critical contribution to the revival of the snow resort industry. Snowboarding was finally recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1994 and debuted at the Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, in 1998. This breakthrough with the Olympics was greeted with mixed emotions by snowboarders; in fact, three-time world champion snowboarder Terje Håkonsen of Norway boycotted the Olympic Games because of a disagreement with the IOC.
At the 1998 Games, four events (two for men and two for women) were held in two specialties: the giant slalom, a downhill event similar to giant slalom skiing; and the halfpipe, in which competitors performed tricks while going from one side of a semicircular pipe to the other. Overall, the sport’s debut was lacklustre, with the halfpipe contest airing during the middle of the night in the United States and with the disqualification of giant slalom winner Ross Rebagliati of Canada, whose victory was negated when he later tested positive for marijuana (a disqualification that was subsequently overturned).
Snowboarding’s reception at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City was quite different. The halfpipe event was broadcast as a prime-time event in the U.S., and Americans dominated the winner’s podium. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, the halfpipe was again the centrepiece of the Games, along with the debut of a new event, the “snowboard cross” (originally and still frequently called boardercross), in which competitors race against each other down a course with jumps, berms, and other obstacles. Then, at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, mainstream interest in the halfpipe reached fever pitch. American snowboarding superstar Shaun White captivated the crowd by landing the first ever double McTwist 1260 (two flips while completing three-and-a-half twists) in competition, while this author enjoyed the thrill of winning the women’s gold medal in this event.