Snowboarding
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).
Snowboarding Styles And Competition Types
-Freestyle
-Halfpipe and superpipe
-Slopestyle
-Urban and jibbing
-Big Air
-Rail jam
