Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast,
Where I help you drift off one fact at a time.
I'm your host,
Benjamin Boster,
And today's episode is about snowboarding.
Snowboarding is both a recreational pastime and a competitive winter sport,
In which an individual rides down snow-covered slopes or terrain while standing on a specially designed board called a snowboard.
This board is securely fastened to the rider's feet using bindings,
Ensuring that the snowboard remains attached throughout the ride.
This board requires a combination of balance,
Control,
And skill to navigate various snow conditions and terrains,
Ranging from groomed ski runs to natural backcountry slopes.
Over the years,
Snowboarding has grown in popularity and recognition,
And it is now an official discipline featured in major international competitions,
Including the Winter Olympic Games and the Winter Paralympic Games.
The origins of snowboarding can be traced back to the United States,
Where it was developed as a unique blend of influences from other board sports and winter activities.
Skateboarding,
Surfing,
Sledding,
And skiing all played a role in shaping the early versions of the sport.
As it developed,
Snowboarding attracted a dedicated following and gradually spread across the globe.
Its growing popularity and athletic appeal led to its official debut as a Winter Olympic sport at the Nagano Games in Japan in 1998 and featured in the Paralympics at Sochi in 2014.
As of 2015,
Its popularity is measured by equipment sales in the United States,
Peaked in 2007,
And has been in decline since.
The first snowboards were developed in 1965 when Sherm Poppin,
An engineer in Muskegon,
Michigan,
Invented a toy for his daughters by fastening two skis together and attaching a rope to one end so he would have some control as they stood on the board and glided downhill.
Dubbed the Snurfer,
Combining snow and surfer,
By his wife Nancy,
The toy proved so popular among his daughter's friends that Poppin licensed the idea to a manufacturer,
Brunswick Corporation,
That sold about a million Snurfers over the next decade.
And in 1966 alone,
Over half a million Snurfers were sold.
Modern snowboarding was pioneered by Tom Sims and Jake Burton Carpenter,
Who both contributed significant innovations and started influential companies.
In February 1968,
Poppin organized the first Snurfing competition at a Michigan ski resort that attracted enthusiasts from all over the country.
One of those early pioneers was Tom Sims,
A devotee of skateboarding,
A sport born in the 1950s when kids attached roller skate wheels to small boards that they steered by shifting their weight.
In the 1960s,
As an 8th grader in Haddonfield,
New Jersey,
Sims crafted a snowboard in his school shop class by gluing carpet to the top of a piece of wood and attaching aluminum sheeting to the bottom.
He produced commercial snowboards in the mid-70s,
Including the Ski Board,
Also known as the Lonnie Toft Flying Banana,
A molded polyethylene bottom with a Lonnie Toft signature skateboard deck attached to the top.
Others experimented with board-on-snow configurations at this time,
Including Welsh skateboard enthusiasts John Roberts and Pete Matthews developed their own snowboards to use at their local dry ski slope.
Also during this same period in 1977,
Jake Burton Carpenter,
A Vermont native who had enjoyed snurfing since the age of 14,
Impressed the crowd at a Michigan snurfing competition with bindings he had designed to secure his feet to the board.
That same year,
He founded Burton Snowboards in Londonderry,
Vermont.
The snowboards were made of wooden planks that were flexible and had water ski foot straps.
Very few people picked up snowboarding because the price of the board was considered too high at $38 and were not allowed on many ski hills,
But eventually Burton would become the biggest snowboarding company in the business.
Burton's early designs for boards with bindings became the dominant features in snowboarding.
The first competitions to offer prize money were the National Snurfing Championship,
Held at Muskegon State Park in Muskegon,
Michigan.
In 1979,
Jake Burton Carpenter came from Vermont to compete with a snowboard of his own design.
There were protests about Jake entering with a non-snurfer board.
Paul Graves and others advocated that Jake be allowed to race.
A modified open division was created and won by Jake as the sole entrant.
That race was considered the first competition for snowboarding and is the start of what became competitive snowboarding.
Ken Campanga,
John Esmason,
And Jim Trim placed first,
Second,
And third respectively in the standard competition with best two combined times of 24.
71,
25.
02,
And 25.
41.
And Jake Carpenter won prize money as the sole entrant in the open division with a time of 26.
35.
In 1980,
The event moved to Pando Winter Sports Park near Grand Rapids,
Michigan because of a lack of snow that year at the original venue.
In the early 1980s,
Alexei Ostatnigrash and Alexei Melnikov,
Two surfers from the Soviet Union,
Patented design changes to the snurfer to allow jumping by attaching a bungee cord,
A single-footed binding to the snurfer tail,
And a two-foot binding design to improve control.
As snowboarding became more popular in the 1970s and 1980s,
Pioneers such as Dmitri Mulovich,
Founder of Winter Stick out of Salt Lake City,
Utah,
Jake Burden Carpenter,
Founder of Burden Snowboards from Londonderry,
Vermont,
Tom Sims,
Founder of Sims Snowboards,
David Kemper,
Founder of Kemper Snowboards,
And Mike Olson,
Founder of New Snowboards,
Came up with new designs for boards and mechanisms that slowly developed into the snowboards and other related equipment.
From these developments,
Modern snowboarding equipment usually consists of a snowboard with specialized bindings and boots.
In April 1981,
The King of the Mountain snowboard competition was held at Ski Cooper in Colorado.
Tom Sims,
Along with an assortment of other snowboarders of the time,
Were present.
One entrant showed up on a homemade snowboard,
With a Formica bottom that turned out to not slide so well in the snow.
In 1982,
The first USA National Snowboard Race was held near Woodstock,
Vermont,
At Suicide Six.
The race,
Organized by Graves,
Was won by Burden's first team rider,
Doug Booton.
In 1983,
The first World Championship halfpipe competition was held at Soda Springs,
California.
Tom Sims,
Founder of Sims Snowboards,
Organized the event with the help of Mike Chantry,
A snowboard instructor at Soda Springs.
In 1985,
The first World Cup was held in Suers,
Austria,
Further cementing snowboarding's recognition as an official international competitive sport.
In 1990,
The International Snowboard Federation,
ISF,
Was founded to provide universal contest regulations.
In addition,
The United States of America Snowboard Association,
USASA,
Provides instructing guidelines and runs snowboard competitions in the U.
S.
Today,
High-profile snowboarding events like the Winter X Games,
Air & Style,
U.
S.
Open,
Olympic Games,
And other events are broadcast worldwide.
Many alpine resorts have terrain parks.
At the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano,
Japan,
Snowboarding became an official Olympic event.
France's Corinne Rouby was the first to win an Olympic gold medal for women's snowboarding,
While Canadian Ross Rabagliati was the first for men's snowboarding.
Initially,
Ski areas adopted the sport at a much slower pace than the winter sports public.
Indeed,
For many years,
There was animosity between skiers and snowboarders,
Which led to an ongoing skier versus snowboarder feud.
Early snowboards were banned from the slopes by park officials.
For several years,
Snowboarders would have to take a small skills assessment prior to being allowed to ride the chairlifts.
It was thought that an unskilled snowboarder would wipe the snow off the mountain.
In 1985,
Only 7% of U.
S.
Ski areas allowed snowboarding,
With a similar proportion in Europe.
As equipment and skills improved,
Gradually snowboarding became more accepted.
In 1990,
Most major ski areas had separate slopes for snowboarders.
Now,
Approximately 97% of all ski areas in North America and Europe allow snowboarding,
And more than half have jumps,
Rails,
And halfpipes.
In 2008,
Snowboarding had over 5 million participants,
Most aged between 18 and 24,
With women comprising 25% of participants.
There were 8.
2 million snowboarders in the U.
S.
And Canada for the 2009-2010 season.
There was a 10% increase over the previous season,
Accounting for more than 30% of all snow sports participants.
On the 2nd of May 2012,
The International Paralympic Committee announced that adaptive snowboarding,
Dubbed para-snowboarding,
Would debut as a men's and women's medal event in the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games,
Taking place in Sochi,
Russia.
Since snowboarding's inception as an established winter sport,
It has developed various styles,
Each with its own specialized equipment and technique.
The most common styles today are free-ride,
Freestyle,
And free-carve race.
These styles are used for both recreational and professional snowboarding.
While each style is unique,
There is overlap between them.
Jibbing is the term for technical riding on non-standard surfaces.
The word jib is both a noun and a verb,
Depending on the usage of the word.
As a noun,
A jib includes metal rails,
Boxes,
Benches,
Concrete ledges,
Walls,
Vehicles,
Rocks,
And logs.
As a verb,
To jib is referring to the action of jumping,
Sliding,
Or riding on top of objects other than snow.
It is directly influenced by grinding a skateboard.
Jibbing is a freestyle snowboarding technique of riding.
Typically,
Jibbing occurs in a snowboard resort park,
But can also be done in urban environments.
Free-riding is a style without a set of governing rules or set course,
Typically on natural,
Un-groomed terrain.
The basic allows for various snowboarding styles in a fluid motion,
And spontaneity through naturally rugged terrain.
It can be like freestyle with the exception that no man-made features are utilized.
Freestyle snowboarding is any riding that includes performing tricks.
In freestyle,
The rider utilizes natural and man-made features,
Such as rails,
Jumps,
Boxes,
And innumerable others to perform tricks.
It is a popular,
All-inclusive concept that distinguishes the creative aspects of snowboarding in contrast to a style like alpine snowboarding.
Alpine snowboarding is a discipline within the sport of snowboarding.
It is practiced on groomed beasts.
It has been an Olympic event since 1998.
Sometimes called free-carving or hard-booting due to the equipment used,
This discipline usually takes place on hard-patched snow or groomed runs,
Although it can be practiced in any and all conditions and focuses on carving linked turns,
Such like surfing and longboarding.
Little or no jumping takes place in this discipline.
Alpine snowboarding consists of a small portion of the general snowboard population that has a well-connected social community and its own specific board manufacturers.
Most situated in Europe.
Alpine snowboard equipment includes a ski-like hard-shell boot and plate-binding system with a true directional snowboard that is stiffer and narrower to manage linking turns with greater forces and speed.
Shaped skis can thank these free-carve snowboards for the cutting-edge technology leading to their creation.
A skilled alpine snowboarder can link numerous turns into a run placing their body very close to the ground each turn,
Similar to a motocross turn or water ski carve.
Depending on factors including stiffness,
Turning radius,
And personality,
This can be done slowly or fast.
Carvers make perfect half-circles out of each turn,
Changing edges when the snowboard is perpendicular to the fall line and starting every turn on the downhill edge.
Carving on a snowboard is like riding a rollercoaster because a board will lock into a turn radius and provide what feels like multiple Gs of acceleration.
Alpine snowboarding shares more visual similarities with skiing equipment than it does with snowboarding equipment.
Compared to freestyle snowboarding gear,
Boards are narrower,
Longer,
And stiffer to improve carving performance.
Boots are made from a hard plastic shell,
Making it flex differently from a regular snowboard boot and is designed differently to ski boots,
Although they look similar.
Bindings have a bail or step-in design and are sometimes placed on suspension plates to provide a layer of isolation between an alpine snowboarder and the board to decrease the level of abrasions felt by the rider,
Creating a better overall experience when carving,
And to give extra weight to the board among other uses.
Competitors perform tricks while descending a course,
Moving around,
Over,
Across,
Up or down terrain features.
The course is full of obstacles including boxes,
Rails,
Jumps,
Jibs,
Or anything else the board or rider can slide across.
Slopestyle is a judged event,
And winning a slopestyle contest usually comes from successfully executing the most difficult line in the terrain park,
While having a smooth flowing line of difficult,
Mistake-free tricks performed on the obstacles.
However,
Overall impression and style can play a factor in winning a slopestyle contest,
And the rider who lands the hardest tricks will not always win over the rider who lands easier tricks on more difficult paths.
Big air competitions are contests where riders perform tricks after launching off a man-made jump built specifically for the event.
Competitors perform tricks in the air,
Aiming to attain sizable hide and distance,
All while securing a clean landing.
Many competitions also require the rider to do a complex trick.
Not all competitions call for a trick to win the gold.
Some intermittent competitions are based solely on height and distance of the launch of the snowboarder.
Some competitions also require the rider to do a specific trick to win the major prize.
One of the first snowboard competitions where Travis Rice attempted and landed a double backflip backside 180 took place at the 2006 Red Bull Gap Session.
The halfpipe is a semi-circular ditch dug into the mountain or purpose-built ramp made up of snow,
With walls between 8 and 23 feet.
Competitors perform tricks while going from one side to the other,
And while in the air above the sides of the pipe.
Snowboard Cross,
Also known as Border Cross,
Border X,
Or Snowboard X,
And commonly abbreviated as SBX or just BX,
Is a snowboarding discipline consisting of several,
Typically 4-6 riders,
Racing head-to-head down a course with jumps,
Berms,
And other obstacles constructed out of snow.
Snowboard Cross began in the 1980s,
Earning its place as an official Winter Olympic event in the 2006 Turin Games.
Unlike other snowboard racing disciplines,
Such as Parallel Giant Slalom,
Competitors race on a single course together.
In snowboard racing,
Riders must complete a downhill course constructed of a series of turning color indicators,
Gates,
Placed in the snow at prescribed distances apart.
A gate consists of a tall pole and a short pole,
Connected by a triangular panel.
The racer must pass around the short pole and the short side of the gate.
Passing the long side of the gate doesn't count.
There are three main formats used in snowboard racing,
Including single-person,
Parallel courses,
Or multiple people on the course at the same time,
SBX.
Snowboarding contests are held throughout the world,
And range from grassroots competitions to professional events contested worldwide.
Some of the larger snowboarding contests include the European Air and Style,
The Japanese X-Trail Jam,
Burton Global Open Series,
Shakedown,
FIS World Championships,
The annual FIS World Cup,
The Winter X Games,
Free Ride World Tour,
And the Winter Do Tour.
Snowboarding has been a Winter Olympics sport since 1998 Winter Olympics in Japan.
Since its inauguration,
Olympic snowboarding has seen many additions and removals of events.
During the 2018 Winter Olympics,
Snowboarding events contested including Big Air,
Half Pipe,
Parallel Giant Slalom,
Slope Style,
And Snowboard Cross.
Snowboarder Magazine's Super Park event was created in 1996.
Over 150 of the world's top pros are invited to advance freestyle snowboarding on the most progressive terrain parks.
Part of the snowboarding approach is to ensure maximum fun,
Friendship,
And event quality.
Reflecting this perspective of snowboarding,
There are anti-contests,
Which are an important part of its identity.
These include the Holi Oli Revival at the Summit at Snoqualmie,
The Nate Shoot Hawaiian Classic at Whitefish,
The original Anti-Contest,
The World Quarter Pipe Championships,
And the Grenade Games.
The United States of America Snowboarding and Free Ski Association,
USASA,
The first governing body for grassroots snowboarding,
Runs 30 regional series and national championships in the U.
S.
The snowboarding way of life came about as a natural response to the culture from which it emerged.
Early on there was a rebellion against skiing culture,
And the view that snowboarders were inferior.
Skiers did not easily accept this new culture on their slopes.
The two cultures contrasted each other in several ways,
Including how they spoke,
Acted,
And their entire style of clothing.
Snowboarders first embraced the punk and later the hip-hop look into their style.
Words such as dude,
Gnarly,
And shred the gnar are some examples of the words used in the snowboarding culture.
Snowboarding subculture became a crossover between the urban and sub-urban styles on snow,
Which made an easy transition from surfing and skateboarding culture over to snowboarding culture.
In fact,
Many skateboarders and surfers snowboarded in the winter months,
And were the early snowboarders.
The early stereotypes of snowboarding included lazy,
Grungy,
Punk,
Stoners,
Troublemakers,
And numerous others,
Many of which are associated with skateboarding and surfing as well.
However,
These stereotypes may be considered out of style.
Snowboarding has become a sport that encompasses a very diverse international-based crowd and fanbase of many millions,
So much so that it is no longer possible to stereotype such a large community.
Reasons for these dying stereotypes include how mainstream and popular the sport has become,
With the shock factor of snowboarding's quick take off on the slopes wearing off.
Skiers and snowboarders are becoming used to each other,
Showing more respect to each other on the mountain.
The typical stereotype of the sport is changing as the demographics change.
While these two subcultures are now becoming accustomed to each other,
There are still three resorts in the United States which do not allow snowboarding.
Alta,
Deer Valley,
And Mad River Glen are the last skiing-only resorts in North America,
And have become a focal point over time for the remaining animosity between snowboarding and skiing.
Common injuries in snowboarding differ between professional and recreational groups.
The most common type of injury for snowboarders is injury to the upper body.
In recreational snowboarding,
Wrist injuries are more likely to occur.
Among professional snowboarders,
Injuries to the lower half,
Specifically the knee joint,
Are more likely to occur.
When injured,
Snowboarders are twice as likely to get a fracture as skiers.
Other minor injuries that happen are wrist injuries,
Shoulder soft tissue injuries,
Ankle injuries,
Concussions,
And clavicle fractures.
We're seeing injuries are very common when snowboarding.
In recreational and inexperienced,
Most injuries to snowboarders occurred more often while they were traveling at reckless speed on moderate slopes.
Another way injuries happen is because they try sticking with something that is a higher skill level,
Which they are not capable of handling,
Because of a lack of skill they possess.
Some major injuries that occur during snowboarding are head and spinal injuries.
The main cause of spinal fractures in snowboarders was jump landing failure,
And compression type fractures occur in about 80% of snowboarders with vertebral fractures,
Because they frequently fall backwards.
And this can cause axial loading and anterior compression fractures.
Injuries to the upper body are much less common among professional snowboarders.
Most of the professionals and elite snowboarders frequently sustain injuries when trying to execute challenging tricks at high speeds,
And with increased levels of force to the lower limbs.
