Antti Autti of Finland in action during the Snowboarding World Championships 2005 Mens Big Air Competition on January 21, 2005 in Whistler Canada. (Agence Zoom/Getty Images) No Olympic sport owes more to youth culture and shrewd marketing than snowboarding. The youngest Olympic event has evolved from a daredevil backcountry pastime into one of the fastest-growing sports in the world.
The renegade event boomed once businesses realized its youth appeal proved to be a demographic perfect for pushing everything from pretzels to SUVs. But the outlaw heart and soul of snowboarding lives on in many who practice it. For them there's nothing like mastering a trick after hours of bailing or carving fresh mountain powder.
Most riders believe snowboarding is more a way of life than a sport. Like the sports it evolved from — surfing, skateboarding and alpine skiing — snowboarding has its own culture, slang and lifestyle.
Surfing on snow
American Sherwin Poppen is often credited with mass-producing the earliest snowboard-like device in the mid-1960s. Called the Snurfer — surfing on snow — it was essentially a beefed-up skateboard plank covered with staples to provide traction and a hand-held rope attached for steering.
The Snurfer was marketed and sold as a toy, but the 1960s leisure movement saw the Snurfer’s potential as a legitimate piece of sporting equipment. A small group of thrill-seekers took the Snurfer into the backcountry where it gathered a loyal following. Because of its limited control mechanisms, the Snurfer earned a reputation for danger, so most commercial ski centres wanted nothing to do with it.
Early snowboarding pioneers such as Jake Burton Carpenter, Tom Sims and Demetrije Milovich improved upon the original Snurfer. They created boards with adjustable foot straps and steel edges. Buzz began to grow amongst skating and surfing enthusiasts. Snowboarding became a winter alternative to the summer board sports. Its potential further blossomed as better equipment hit store shelves.
Canada's Jasey Jay Anderson competes in the Mens Snowboard Cross Qualifying during the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games. (Donald Miralle/Getty Images) Some commercial ski areas opened their slopes to snowboarding in the early 1980s but it didn’t take long for friction to build between skiers and boarders. Many skiers viewed snowboarders as antisocial outlaws. The riders saw the ski resort as the domain of yuppies. The snowboarder-skier rivalry simmered down as more snowboarders hit the slopes and more die-hard skiers swapped their skis for boards.
Hipsters from youth subcultures like punk, grunge, hip-hop and skateboarding embraced the sport and influenced everything from the gravity-defying moves to the carefree lifestyle. Advertisers and big business jumped on board, causing an explosion of interest in the latest winter "it" sport.
Most ski hills that originally resisted the snow shredders had to face the economic facts — snowboarding brought in big bucks. More hills began opening their slopes to riders.
At the same time, internal strife surfaced within the snowboarding community as different disciplines emerged. Some snowboarders favoured freestyle trick riding, the type associated with surfing and skateboarding. Others explored alpine possibilities, tearing down slopes at high speeds and carving crisp turns. A third group embraced freeriding, a combination of alpine and freestyle.
Competition begins
The first official snowboard competition was held in Leadville, Col., in 1981. The International Snowboard Association (ISA), the sport's original governing body, was founded eight years later, and in 1991 transformed into the International Snowboard Federation.
The snowboarder-run ISF held the first world championships in 1992 and remained the dominant snowboarding organization until 1994, when the International Ski Federation (FIS) added a snowboarding wing to the repertoire of snow sports under its jurisdiction.
The FIS promptly arranged a deal with the IOC to become the official snowboarding tour associated with the Olympics, infuriating ISF executives and riders. The Olympic allure proved powerful to competitive boarders, though. Eventually, many ISF athletes began competing in both circuits or exclusively in FIS events. The Olympic affiliation paved the way for the FIS to take over as the primary governing snowboarding organization.
Olympic History
Snowboarding gained official Olympic medal status faster than most events. It took curling six attempts as a demonstration or exhibition sport before entering the official Olympic program; snowboarding earned the same recognition in less than a decade of World Cup competitions and no demonstration appearances.
Snowboarders didn't universally embrace the Olympic movement, and some wanted nothing to do with it. Half-pipe guru Terje Haakonsen of Norway opted to boycott the Nagano Games. Haakonsen felt snowboarding was about personal expression and self-enjoyment, not about governing bodies, big money and being judged.
Karine Ruby dominated the first-ever Olympic women's giant slalom. The French rider beat her nearest rival by almost two seconds.
In snowboarding's glamour event, the halfpipe, Switzerland's Gian Simmen won men's gold, while Nicola Thost of Germany aired her way to the top of the women's podium.
Canada didn’t win any snowboarding medals at the 2002 Olympics. Switzerland's Philipp Schoch claimed gold in the men's parallel giant slalom; France's Isabelle Blanc was first in the women's division. In the halfpipe events, Americans Ross Powers and Kelly Clark were the class of their fields.
With the sport building momentum, the men and women’s snowboard cross made its debut at the 2006 Games in Turn, Italy.
Canada’s Dominique Maltais earned a bronze medal in the event. Shaun White, a young American skateboarder and snowboard prodigy, took gold in the men’s half-pipe event.
