Snowboarding Facts
One of the winter sports that have attained phenomenal popularity in recent times all over the world is snowboarding. To help you know more about this game I will share a few facts of snowboarding with you.
The sixties witnessed the development of this game in the USA and the seventies witnessed its epidemic and infectious popularity.
Sherman Poppen was the first person to invent the snowboard and he named it the SNURFER. This first snowboard with a quirky nickname was a downsized version of a skateboard in its rudimentary stage.
Big companies and renowned manufacturers entered the empty field to capture a big market share and some of the best snowboarding equipment and accessories and apparel are manufactured by big players in the business like Burton, GNU, SIMS, and Milovich.
The first WORLD CUP SNOWBOARDING GAMES was hosted at Austria in Zurs.
A new body for regulating the game and stipulating the rules and hosting events worldwide was established in 1994 and was called as INTERNATIONAL SNOWBOARD ASSOCIATION or ISA.
It became included in the WINTER OLYMPIC SPORT in 1998.
Because of initial safety concerns, snowboarding was permitted in only 7% of all ski resorts but the number leaped up to an overwhelming 97% ski resorts worldwide. The game is now aided by equipment such as rails and trainers to increase its professional capacities.
You will be surprised to know that a whopping 1.58 million snowboards flew off the shelves in the year 1998.
Snowboarding as a recreational activity is most popular in the snowy summits of Europe, Canada and USA. In fact, 20% of the tourists visiting America are snowboarding fanatics. The epidemic has caught on even in Australia which experiences no snowfall at all, but houses exponentially large numbers of snowboarding enthusiasts.
Some of the most famous, glamorous, highly publicized and money minting snowboarding sporting events are the WINTER OLYMPICS, WINTER X GAMES, SKAKEDOWN, CHEVROLET REVOLUTION TOUR, THE CHEVROLET U.S. SNOWBOARDING GRAND PRIX, THE U.S. OPEN, THE WEST COAST INVITATIONAL, RACE TO THE CUP, VANS CUP etc.
Alpine/carving and freestyle/freeride are the two common fundamental techniques of snowboarding. Different styles and techniques require different kinds of equipment.
A few of the international events and snowboarding competitions involve PARALLEL GIANT SLALOM, SLOPESTYLE, BOARDER CROSS, and THE HALFPIPE.
In its Olympics debut, the snowboarding venue was in Japan at Nagano and in the next winter Olympics (2002), the venue shifted to Salt Lake City.
Burton is by far the very best and most reputed/trusted brand in the arena of snowboarding apparel, equipments and gear. The founder was Jake Burton in the late seventies.