Winter Olympic Snowboarding: The Events

Flying High

If you are a Snowboard-A-Holic, be sure to check out the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. There are three events to watch and you might just want to get in on the action to see if you can by an Olympic Snowboarder one day.

Snowboard Cross

The Snowboard Cross is a cool race around a track full of hills, jumps, and tight turns. The fun thing about this race is that it is a race against the clock and against your opponents right beside you. Races are usually grouped in 4 snowboarders, and the challenges they face are to stay in control while trying to pass each other. There is usually lots of contact and big wipeouts between the competitors.

Snowboard Half Pipe

The Half Pipe is not a race against time, but an event judged on the performance of complicated and acrobatic tricks while maintaining perfect form. The Half Pipe has two big walls of snow down a track a couple of football fields long, and the snowboarder has a chance to perform two different runs on the track. Each run the boarder performs jumps as is judged by 5 judges who score the run out of 10. The main things the judges look for are amplitude, execution, difficulty and variety. So the main trick is to look cool while doing a McTwist 30 feet in the air

Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom

The Slalom is a fast race down the mountain against the clock. The event is based on pure speed while making sharp turns around the designated flags that can’t be missed. The event can happen where the competitors race solo or two at the same time.

American Gold

Snowboarding has become a very popular event at the Winter Olympics since it began at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan. This year at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, the Americans are dominating the sport. Shaun White won the Men’s Gold Medal in the Half Pipe and Seth Wescott won the Gold for the Snowboard Cross. The women’s side has Canadian Maelle Ricker winning the Gold Medal in the Snowboard Cross, but with 3 Americans finishing in the top 5 qualifiers for the Half Pipe, they have a great chance for another Gold.