Snowboarding Preview

First Ever Olympic Snowboarding:
Riders Taking It to the Stage

Terje doesn't need the Olympics to prove his prowess

Snowboarding has come full circle. In 10 years, the sport has gone from being shunned and outlawed by resorts around the world (and is still prohibited by 80% of all resorts in Japan) to a full medal Olympic sport.

Snowboarding is now the fastest growing winter sport — the market has exploded, millions have been made, resorts not only opened up, but park and pipe building has become an expensive art form, snowboarders have reached rock star status and board companies have popped up by the hundreds.

Riding that big money wave, competitions began to get serious. Federations and national Circuits found big money sponsors and awarded big money prizes. Movies were made and young riders, skaters and surfers around the world began to see images of snowboarders in a new light — not as punks who slap their boards on the lip of some silly, snow U-pipe, but as athletes that attack death defying first descents in Alaska; acrobatic aerialists who pull maneuvers that begin and end with boarders riding backwards; and, as racers, with all the speed, skill and training of any Olympic hopeful in any discipline.

Nicolas Conte doesn't do anything slow

Enter the International Olympic Committee (IOC). After over 40 years of formatting ski races and setting Olympic standards, the IOC saw money in the young blood and newly found hipness that snowboarding could offer. Thus the quick integration of snowboarding into the normally decade-long Olympic acceptance process.

So now without exhibition (it was canceled in Lillehammer), separate snowboard federations or hesitation, we welcome the first ever Olympic Snowboarding events, in both Halfpipe and Giant Slalom, from a land that's still 80% skier friendly .

Let the Games begin.

— Hans Prosl, Snowboard Editor