Snowboarding - Part E - by Anne Shier (a.k.a. "Annie")

(Based on the book, “Winter Olympics:  An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games”, Vancouver Edition, copyright 2008 by Ron C. Judd)

HISTORY’S HITS AND MISSES:

Unlike most Winter Games sports, whose roots stretch back centuries, snowboarding is a relatively recent phenomenon – less than 40 years old at the dawn of the 2010 Games.

Several people lay claim to having produced the first snowboard, as it were – a single board with dual foot mountings designed to mimic the motion of surfing on snow.  The first crude board to be mass-manufactured, the Smurfer, was based on a 1960s design by Sherman Poppen, a Michigan engineer who built the device for his daughter.

An early adopter and experimenter with the product was Vermont’s Jake Burton Carpenter, who refined the idea into something more closely resembling a modern snowboard, launching in 1977 a company that would dominate the industry up to the present day.  Other experimenters were developing competing products around the same time, notably Dimitrije Milovich’s Swallowtail, the precursor of the Winterstick line, debuting in 1976.  Another early pioneer, California’s Tom Sims, was making snowboards in his garage the same year Burton’s company got off the ground, teaming with collaborator Bob Weber to develop the Skiboard.  Burton and Sims became competitors in a gear race that continues to this day.

With that gear in hand, early riders began to make tentative first tracks at U.S. ski areas in the early 1980s.  At first, they were banned from most ski resorts, so they had to seek refuge in more far-flung corners.  Stowe in Vermont and Mount Baker Ski Area in northwest Washington were the first traditional ski resorts to develop active - and skilled – snowboard communities.  They spread like wildfire.

By 1990, resort operators, recognizing snowboarding as a key to their survival, allowed the sport at most ski resorts.  Today, only a couple of holdouts remain.

Boarders, Meet Your Bureaucracy:

Snowboarding got its own World Cup competition in 1987, and its future as an international, perhaps even an Olympic medal, sport became clear.  A long and often counterproductive argument ensued within the snowboard community.  Should a free-form, maverick sport such as snowboarding be subject to the rules of an international federation?  If so, which one?

By 1998, the debate was over.  Snowboarding, the International Olympic Committee decided, would fall under the auspices of the International Ski Federation, or FIS.  It was quickly added as a medal event, with halfpipe and giant slalom, for the 1998 Nagano Games.

The decision was not without controversy, which has faded but still burns in the heart of some snowboard pioneers.  Placing the sport within the structure of the International Ski Federation put it in the hands of the chief proponents of skiing, the very sport snowboarders had revolted against.  And it was a snub to the International Snowboarding Federation, a snowboarders’ group that had been sanctioning international competitions since the early 1990s.

One result of that rift had a substantial impact on the Nagano Games.  Norwegian snowboard legend Terje Haakonsen announced that he would never attend an Olympics, a vow he has kept.

Since that time, most snowboarders have accepted the FIS oversight, under which the sport has thrived, particularly after its popularity at the Salt Lake Olympics of 2002.

Home Snow Advantage:

American snowboard fans had waited through two Olympic cycles for the expected dominance in a sport invented in the United States.  At the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games, they finally saw it in Park City.  With a raucous crowd of more than 16,000 looking on, Ross Powers, Danny Kass, and J.J. Thomas stole the show, winning gold, bronze and silver.  It was the first time any nation had swept a snowboard event and was America’s first Winter Games sweep since figure skating in 1956.

Powers, a Vermont native who had turned 23 the day before, popped the most memorable halfpipe run in Olympic history, catching huge, hospital air and pulling off seven textbook twists and grabs.  Coming a day after teammate Kelly Clark grabbed the gold medal in the women’s contest, the sweep put America firmly in the halfpipe driver’s seat – a precedent that would be upheld four years later in Turin, where newcomers Shaun White and Hannah Teter claimed gold, while Kass and Gretchen Bleiler won silver.

copyright 2014, Anne Shier.  All rights reserved.