Snowboarding is similar to surfing on snow or skiing without sticks. Formally, the sport known as snowboarding is acknowledged as the 1965 creation of Sherman Poppens, an American engineer. Poppens’ original invention was merely two snow skis bolted together, but today’s modern snowboard design has certainly come a long way. The initial snowboard design has transcended into a plethora of board styles, each uniquely suited for their rider's preferred style of snowboarding. Some are more flexible for better maneuverability during aerial tricks, while others have a wider base to perform better landings on jumps. Nowadays, snowboarding is a source of leisure and recreation during the winter months for those outside the professional settings, so to most, these modifications don’t really mean much. However, there are also many who participate in the competitive side of snowboarding, where such modifications are held in high importance, because they can have a large effect on whether their rider performs well or not.
Professionals in snowboarding often take to the slopes to show off the fruits of their labour through complicated twists and turns on their boards. Competitive snowboarding has a wide array of styles and judging systems and each competition board has a set of guidelines on how to judge a certain style of the sport. Here is a brief rundown of the different styles of snowboarding one can expect in a competitive setting:
Freestyle: Performing aerial tricks like jumps and spins in half pipes and on rails (artificial features) or on slopes(natural features ). Some types of freestyle events include:
Slopestyle: The snowboarder performs a series of different jumps and is then judged based on the level of difficulty of each maneuver and tricks.
Jibbing: This type of freestyle snowboarding uses any surface besides snow to carry the rider through tricks and jumps. Jibbing usually occurs in resort settings, but is also conducted in urban settings as well.
Freeriding: As the name implies, freeriding is riding through trees and slopes, as well as groomed grounds. Some variations include:
Backcountry & big mountain: These rides are conducted outside resort bounds, held in the wilderness and require immense attention. The primary goal here is to ride where no one has before.
Alpine snowboarding: Focused more on expertly riding through obstacles at breakneck speeds, alpine snowboarding is closely tied to skiing.
Slalom racing: Involves racing through gates in the snow (poles) as quickly as possible.
Boardercross: Also called snowboard cross, it is the snowboard version of a motocross. Multiple riders have to go down a course designed to test their balance and coordination at high speeds. The first to reach the button wins.
Next, the process of judging. Each competition board is governed by new guidelines for each year on how judging is to be carried out, in addition to their judging training camps. The following is the criteria of how snowboarding would have been judged for 2019-2020 by the FIS for Snowboarding: a judge would take into consideration execution, difficulty, amplitude, variety & progression of the athlete’s performance. Depending on the event, the participant is given a score at each interval in each category by each judge. There are further subcategories under each criterion to help the judge in giving the athlete a suitable score based on their performance. So for example, if an athlete is performing a jump for a freestyle event, then each judge is scoring the rider based on how cleanly the jump was executed, if the rider made a smooth landing, how many turns they made while airborne, etcetera.
Each judge awards a score between 0 to 100 for each run, allowing each run to be ranked in one of three categories: below average, average and above average. The first five to ten scores constitute anchor scores, which act as a benchmark to help rank all subsequent runs. And if two runs end up with the same rank,the guidelines mentioned above by the FIS are taken into account to determine which run was better.
If competitive snowboarding sounds like it has piqued your interest, then the competitions below are definitely something to look forward to!
FIS World Cup Circuit - Features a gathering of the best snowboarders from around the globe competing, a must see event!!
The X Games - Skateboard and bike fans know the name! The Winter X games are the perfect venues for beginners to show off their skills
The Olympics - need we say more?
Burton New Zealand Open - annual event and New Zealand’s biggest snowboarding competition.
Steven’s Pass World Snowboarding Championship - A popular ski & snowboarding resort with world renowned slopes.
Enter the Dragon - An event catered towards those looking for some fun, no matter the age!
Sources:
Bright, T. (2020, March 13). snowboarding. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/sports/snowboarding
Copy Stephanie Watson "How Snowboarding Works" 5 May 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. <https://adventure.howstuffworks.com/outdoor-activities/snow-sports/snowboarding.htm> 16 November 2021
FIS. (2019). JUDGES HANDBOOK SNOWBOARD & FREESKI. Switzerland .
Snowboarding glossary. Snowboarding Terms Glossary | REI Co-op. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2021, from https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/snowboarding-glossary.html.
Sports. The Top Snowboarding Competitions You Need To Know. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2021, from https://www.streetdirectory.com/etoday/-wlwwlw.html.
⁴. Red Bull gives you wings - redbull.com. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2021, from https://www.redbull.com/us-en/freestyle-judging-and-calculating-points.
Published December 21, 2021
Written by Karena Dindial ~ Edited by Sasha Thomas ~ Graphics created by Fiona Xu
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