preview

Slopestyle Snowboarding

Decent Essays

Imagine this: you’re on the starting line, feet strapped firmly into boots on your snowboard. The start horn sounds, and you’re off, flying down the slope, jumping obstacles and landing tricks. Slopestyle snowboarding has gained popularity as an Olympic sport, even if it is pretty young. The lack of time the sport has been around doesn’t mean it isn’t well developed. It has a history, and many people competing with a set scoring system and rules. Bored Americans who had way too much time on their hands created snowboarding. In the decade of the ‘60s, snowboarding was born, getting more interesting as skateboarders and surfers joined the early developers of the sport. As the sport gained popularity, it also gained it’s haters- mainly skiers. …show more content…

From their home country of the U.S., Red Gerard (Cazenuve) and Sage Kotsenburg are among the men competing (“Slopestyle men- Olympic Snowboard”). On the women’s side of the world, Jamie Anderson took the first womens gold. Hailey Langland and Julia Marino will also be competing . On the international level, “Canadian and Norwegian riders top the list of favorites” (Smith). The sport has many competitors from equally diverse nationalities, but what separates the gold from silver and bronze is …show more content…

According to the Federation International de Ski (FIS), ‘overall impression’ is the main scoring method. Half a dozen judges score adversaries on the tricks they perform. Diversity, implementation, and complexity of the tricks as well as landing in the ‘sweet spot’ will all impact the point total (McMahon). The more technically perfect a run is and the harder the tricks performed will result in a higher score. Compared to some other Olympic sports, snowboarding could be referred to as still a fledgling. However, the sport is becoming as trendy as some of the older winter sports. I also find it slightly ironic that the FIS, a skiing organization, scores snowboarding when it was skiers who were originally against the sport. People from all nations score big by landing impressive tricks. The variation of nationalities that snowboarders come from means that no matter where you come from, there is someone in this event you can cheer for.
Cazenuve, Brian. “Medal Picks.” Sports Illustrated, 29 Jan. 2018, pp.

Get Access