Part 2

The downside to snowboarding is of course falling which happens quite often. Knowing the type of equipment used and the rider's position on the board is important in evaluating injuries. Equipment failures rarely cause injuries. Although early studies showed that approximately one half of snowboarding injuries were located in the lower extremities, this pattern has changed with the evolution of snowboard boots and bindings. The lead leg, which is at greatest risk, accounts for almost three quarters of such injuries. In early days of snowboarding many riders did not ware helmets because they were unstylish but today helmets come in a huge selection of styles and can be fitted to anyone’s head for comfort and safety (info@valueseek.com)

Knowing the basics of snowboarding before heading down the mountain is the most important thing any snowboarder should know. Snowboarders should know how to stop, turn when they want to and always keep control of the board so they do not get hurt or hurt some one else. If one does not know the basics than they should either walk a little up the mountain out of everyone’s way and strap in to their snowboard and just try to see if they can turn both ways and stop with out hitting anyone or anything. Or they can just ask an instructor or ski patrol if they can give you any tips on what they have to do to master the basics of snowboarding (Tomlinson).

Twenty percent of all visitors to U.S. ski resorts are snowboarders, and more than three point five million people have taken up snowboarding worldwide. Since snowboarding's inception as an established winter sport, it has developed various styles, each with its own specialized equipment and technique. The most common styles today are: free ride, freestyle, and free carve/race. The free ride style is the most common and easily accessible style of snowboarding. It involves riding down any terrain available. Free riding may include aerial tricks and jib tricks borrowed from freestyle, or deep carve turns more common in alpine snowboarding, utilizing whatever natural terrain the rider may encounter. Free riding equipment is usually a stiff soft shell boot with a directional twin snowboard. Since the free ride style may encounter many different types of snow conditions, from ice to deep powder, free ride snowboards are usually longer and have a stiffer overall flex. In freestyle, the rider uses manmade terrain features such as rails, boxes, handrails, jumps, half pipes, quarter pipes and a myriad of other features. The intent of freestyle is to use these terrain features to perform a number of aerial or jib tricks. Similar to skiing, this race and slalom focused style is still practiced, though infrequently. Sometimes called alpine, or the 'Euro-carve', free carving takes place on hard packed snow or groomed runs and focuses on the ultimate carving turn, much like traditional skiing. Little or no jumping takes place in this discipline. (Ejadol).

Year Event
1965 Sherman Poppen, an American, Invents the snurfer (snow-surfboard) for his daughter by tying a pair of skis together.
1975 Dimitrije Milovich creates “winter stick” the first snowboard brand.
1979 The first ever World Snurfing Championship was held at Pando Ski lodge near Grand Rapids, Michigan.
1980 Vermont hosts the first international snowboarding competition, which snowboarder’s race down a slope called “The Face”.
1982 The first National Snowboard race was held near Woodstock, Vermont at Suicide Six
1983 The first World Championship half pipe competition was held at Soda Springs, California.
1990 Most major ski areas had separate slopes for snowboarders. Now, approximately 97% of all ski areas in North America and Europe allow snowboarding brands.
1998 Snowboarding becomes a winter Olympic sport. Gian Simmen becomes the first Olympic champion.

For my table / graph I created a time line. The time line goes from 1965 to 1998. In 1965 Sherman Poppen invented the snurfer which is a cross between a surfboard and skateboard. And in 1998 snowboarding became a winter Olympic sport. But their were only two events in the 1998 games and they are giant slalom and the halfpipe. But now there are six events and those are men’s and women's halfpipe, men's and women's parallel giant slalom, and men's and women's snowboard cross. Snowboard cross just got added to the in the 2006 games.