The History of Snowboarding in a Nutshell
Published by admin on August 2, 2010No one can
say for certain when the first act of ‘snowboarding’ occurred, however, most
would agree that the past 40 years were most definitive in the history of snowboarding. Some history has
been traced back to the 1920s when apparently inebriated folks in America
attached plywood to their feet and snowboarded downhill.
It wasn’t
until 1965 that anything like snowboarding had commercial success or even a cultural
following. It was this year when a gentleman named Sherman Poppen attached two
skis together and tied a rope around the ski noses for his daughter because she
wanted to stand up in her sleigh. The ‘Snurfer’, as it came to be known, was a
graceful way of descending a slope, using the rope to steer and bobbing from
side to side in the powder. Poppen organised competitive events in order to
create demand for his snurfer after he decided to set up a business to sell it.
A chap by the name of Jake Burton took part in snurfer events, and we will come
back to talk about him in awhile.
In 1970 a
surfer going by the name of Dimitrije Milovich went about developing a board
based on a surfboard and he called it the silly name ‘Winterstick’. Not as
silly as Snurfer sounds but still very silly indeed. His first design, the
Swallowtail, was the first patented modern snowboard.
Now back to
Jake Burton. This chap took part in a snurfing competition with a snurfer
“binded” to his feet. In essence Burton had invented the binding which is
common to practically all snowboards these days. Burton went on to set up a
company to produce snowboards that used ski technology.
It was
around this point in the 1980s that the “snowboarding culture” as we know it
today really started to take off with competitions and magazines being launched.
It gained recognition as an official sport with the first World Cup in 1985
held in Austria. Even at this point there were only a handful of ski resorts in
America out that permitted snowboarders to ride. Since then snowboarding grew
in popularity at an extremely fast rate and is now one of the biggest winter
sports.
The Olympics
of 1998 was the first year that snowboarding was included – there are now 6
events in the Olympics: slalom, parallel slalom, giant slalom, super giant
slalom, snowboardercross and halfpipe. Snowboarding continues to grow in
popularity, and not just across the young snow ‘bums’ who are the stereotypical
rider, but across people of all age groups from around the world.
