A brief history of the extreme sport of Snow Boarding - from its earliest incarnation to the Olympic Games in less than 40 years

It started in 1965 as a means for a man to show his daughter how to surf down the hillside of their Michigan home. By 1998 (Nagano, Japan) it was an Olympic sport. To say that this a meteoric rise in a new sport's development is putting it mildly. But what's the history of the new found craze called "Snow Boarding"?

The early days of Snow Boarding

Snow Boarding is said to have developed because of a certain Sherman Poppen. Legend has it that Poppen wanted to show his daughter how to surf down the side of the hill at their Michigan home. To do this, he fixed two skis together to form a "Snurfer" - a combination of the words "snow" and "surf". Seeing the potential for this, the Snurfer went into mainstream production the next year.

The 1970s and 1980s - the "bad boys" days

By the 1970s and 1980s the extreme sport had taken off sufficiently well enough to have a strong foothold amongst those who enjoyed this new extreme sport. However, in those early days, there were still only a handful of boards available on the market: notably from early pioneers such as Sims, Gnu, Burton and Winterstick. That said, the slope owners had certainly gotten wind of this new craze and were receiving complaints from regular skiers that these hell-raisers on boards were making their lives a misery as they sped past them. The bad boys' image of snowboarding had arrived.

The 1980s and 1990s - some respectability comes to Snow Boarding

With the onset of the 1980s and 1990s came organized Snow Boarding competitions and some form of respectability started to come with the sport. Some still thought this extreme sport was only for the bad boys, but most slope owners had relented on their initial ban of the activity. This acceptance of the sport into the mainstream culminated with its first appearance at the Winter Olympic Games at Nagano, Japan, in 1998 - with a giant slalom and halfpipe competition.

The future of Snow Boarding

Although the sport is less than 40 years old, the fact that it's now North America's biggest growth sport (which includes both summer and winter sports) should mean that Snow Boarding is not just a flash in the pan and is really here to stay. Furthermore, with over 7 million Americans choosing to go out on the slopes and snowboard, it won't be long before all slopes allow this great new sport to participate in the fun and let it rip on their slope!

For more information on Snow Boards, feel free to browse the menu on this page.

Shop for:

	Web Snowboard-Mountain.com

Home | Contact us | Articles | Terms of Use | Partners Snowsports Directory | Refer to us
© 2004-2007 Snowboard-Mountain.com. All Rights Reserved.
This site is protected under both U.S. Federal copyright law and international treaties No part of this work, including text, look and feel, layout, images, may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means.