Snowboarding

Snow­board­ing, although it appeared rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly, has already man­aged to win the hearts of a huge num­ber of peo­ple around the world and is even includ­ed in the pro­gram of the Win­ter Olympic Games. In a lit­tle more than 30 years, this sport has evolved from an orig­i­nal and extreme, but still pro­fes­sion­al sport into one of the most pop­u­lar and pop­u­lar types of win­ter out­door activ­i­ties. Now mil­lions are engaged in snow­board­ing, every seri­ous ski resort has spe­cial parks with equipped tracks, ski jumps, rental points … Every­one who decides to take the first step and tries to get on a snow­board — in a good sense of the word, is actu­al­ly already doomed to be a fan of this sport. As well as doomed to an incred­i­ble amount of adren­a­line on the snowy moun­tain slopes, to amaz­ing emo­tions and anx­ious expec­ta­tion of the first snow, it is doomed to impa­tient­ly view­ing weath­er reports and plan­ning and book­ing, since autumn, pos­si­ble ski pass­es and hous­ing options. And in this sense, snow­board­ing is like a con­ta­gious dis­ease, but a fas­ci­nat­ing, beau­ti­ful dis­ease that you want to expe­ri­ence again and again.

Snow­board­ing. How it all start­ed

As you prob­a­bly noticed, snow­board­ing is very sim­i­lar to surf­ing, only instead of sum­mer, sea, hot sun and boards — win­ter, snow-capped moun­tains and … boards. Actu­al­ly their sim­i­lar­i­ty was the rea­son for the appear­ance of snow­board­ing. Back in 1965, some­one Sher­man Pop­pen came up with the “snurfer” — snow surf­ing. He just con­nect­ed 2 skis togeth­er — noth­ing com­pli­cat­ed, but this event was the begin­ning of a new sport that influ­enced the lives of mil­lions of peo­ple around the world. On the snurfer, the lead­ing leg was attached with a strap motion­less, and the sec­ond one was attached behind it. In the 70s, the Amer­i­can Dmit­ry Milovich devel­ops and receives a patent for a snow­board. Lat­er, both Sher­man Pop­pen and Dmit­ry Milovich, as well as anoth­er snow­board­ing pio­neer, Tom Sims, each inde­pen­dent­ly orga­nize the ser­i­al pro­duc­tion of snow­boards. From that moment on, the pop­u­lar­iza­tion of snow­board­ing in the world begins — in the late 70s, the first reviews and arti­cles in the press, videos on TV were pub­lished. In the 80s in the USA, snow­board­ing is already a nation­al hob­by and con­tin­ues to gain pop­u­lar­i­ty — the first US nation­al cham­pi­onships are held, equip­ment and equip­ment are being rapid­ly improved and updat­ed, and nation­al snow­board asso­ci­a­tions are being orga­nized. And in 1990, the Inter­na­tion­al Snow­board Fed­er­a­tion (ISF) was cre­at­ed, and final­ly, in 1998, snow­board­ing was includ­ed in the pro­gram of the Win­ter Olympic Games.

Types of snow­board­ing

Hard snow­board­ing

There are sev­er­al types of snow­board­ing. Hard snow­board­ing involves speed ski­ing on pre-pre­pared slopes. Fans of this type of snow­board­ing enjoy high speed, over­loads, wind blow­ing in the face and flow­ing around the whole body. They are not afraid of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of injury, the huge weight of the pro­tec­tive kit, nar­row rigid boards and plas­tic boots attached to the front and back of the board. Every­thing makes up for speed! Tra­di­tion­al­ly hard snow­board­ing is divid­ed into rac­ing and carv­ing. In rac­ing, the main goal is to go through the track as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, with­out falling along the packed road around each mark. Carv­ing is a more aes­thet­ic ride, when every turn, every move­ment is adjust­ed to the small­est detail.

Sports snow­board­ing

It includes the fol­low­ing dis­ci­plines: board­er­cross, slalom, par­al­lel slalom, giant slalom, par­al­lel giant slalom and super giant. Since 1998, snow­board­ing has been includ­ed in the pro­gram of the Win­ter Olympics. In 2010 in Van­cou­ver (Cana­da) women and men will com­pete for sets of medals in such dis­ci­plines as half-pipe, board­er­cross, par­al­lel giant slalom. The com­pe­ti­tion will take place at Cypriss Moun­tain on Feb­ru­ary 17, 2010.

Freestyle

This is a descent along a pre-pre­pared track with var­i­ous tricks, ski jumps, etc. One of the types of freestyle is half-pipe (from the Eng­lish “Half-pipe” — half of the pipe). This is a dis­ci­pline in which ath­letes per­form var­i­ous acro­bat­ic tricks in a spe­cial half-pipe cov­ered with a dense lay­er of snow. The height of the walls is usu­al­ly from 1.5 to 3 m, and the length is from 50 to 100 m. It is not sur­pris­ing that this very spec­tac­u­lar form of snow­board­ing is very pop­u­lar in the west and is includ­ed in the pro­gram of the Win­ter Olympic Games. Anoth­er type of freestyle is big air. In it, an ath­lete per­forms var­i­ous tricks in the air while jump­ing from a large spring­board. Per­for­mances are judged on the beau­ty, com­plex­i­ty of tricks and land­ing tech­nique. In slopestyle, the ath­lete per­forms jumps and pass­es the route of their pyra­mids, rail­ings, jumps, slopes. In this type of snow­board­ing, good phys­i­cal prepa­ra­tion and the accu­ra­cy of per­form­ing tricks are very impor­tant, because one mis­take leads to a loss of a lot of time and going off the track.

Freeride

Unlike pro­fes­sion­al Olympic snow­board­ing, freeride is pri­mar­i­ly an occu­pa­tion for mil­lions of ama­teurs. Fresh­ly fall­en, not yet com­pact­ed and loose snow is ide­al for him, and not a pre-pre­pared run-in track for sports snow­board­ing. Accord­ing­ly, the skat­ing tech­nique, pro­tec­tion, and snow­board design also dif­fer. An expe­ri­enced freerid­er can dri­ve almost any­where — there would be snow. It is the freerid­er who tru­ly feels the sur­round­ing nature, pure snow, dis­cov­ers pre­vi­ous­ly unfa­mil­iar tracks. But also, with a high prob­a­bil­i­ty, an avalanche can over­whelm him, or he will sim­ply fly into a stump hid­den under the snow that has just fall­en. As a result — an injury, and there is no one around. And from this point of view, freeride is the most dan­ger­ous type of snow­board­ing.

There would be an occa­sion: World Snow­board­ing Day

Still eager to try? In Ukraine, this type of snow­board­ing can be test­ed, of course, in the Carpathi­ans (Drago­b­rat, Bukov­el, Slavske, Pop Ivan, Hov­er­la) and in the Crimea. In Kyiv, snow­board­ing enthu­si­asts, and not only them, know Pro­tasov Yar very well, and besides, they ride in Golosee­vo, Glo­ry Park and Vysh­gorod.

By the way, there is a rea­son. Since 2006, Decem­ber 20 has been cel­e­brat­ed as World Snow­board­ing Day. In Ukraine, on this day on Mount Ai-Petri, for all snow­board­ing enthu­si­asts, there will be fes­tive com­pe­ti­tions and a par­ty after, as well as free lessons from expe­ri­enced rid­ers. So don’t leave the fun for lat­er!

Author: Vladimir Seli­v­anov

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