|
 |
America's frozen wave of future: snowboarding
By Lee Benson
Deseret News columnist
In a sport that didn't exist 20 years ago and at a resort that banned it until five years ago, three American snowboarders rode to Olympic fame on the Park City Superpipe Monday, finishing one-two-three for the first U.S. Olympic sweep in almost forever while towing not just their sport, but maybe the entire U.S. winter sports movement, into completely new heights.
Talk about big, phat, air.
Sweeps aren't all that rare in the Olympics, but they are for Americans. No sooner had Ross Powers, Danny Kass and J.J. Thomas — combined age: 62 — finished gold-silver-bronze than the media relations staff of the United States Olympic Committee was digging through the record books to see when, or if, it ever happened before. The search took awhile. The last U.S. sweep was in 1956 in men's figure skating. That's 46 years ago. Before that, there wasn't one.
In the 78-year history of the Olympic Winter Games, America has been more like a utility infielder than a home-run threat. It has competed in all 19 Games, including this one, but it has won the overall medal count just once, in the Lake Placid Games of 1932 that took place on home ice, and in the past five Olympics, despite an overwhelming population advantage, the United States has failed to finish among the top four medal winning nations.
The problem has always been the lack of a signature winter sport.
Well, dude, until now.
Snowboarding may not be an entirely American invention. The sport's roots date back here, there and everywhere — sliding downhill on a board isn't exactly like inventing the jet-propulsion engine — but it was an American named Jake Burton who quit his job as a Wall Street stockbroker in 1977 and formed a company he called Burton Snowboards — which is what catapulted what had been a backyard hobby into a worldwide phenomenon.
The easy-riding sport appealed to Americans, and not just those who grow up near mountains and on skis. Surfers and sidewalk surfing skateboarders easily adapted to riding on snow — and they could bring their attitude along with
them. All you needed was a board. For the first time, a winter sport existed that appealed to the masses, especially the young masses who aren't exactly hard-line establishment.
James Dean would have been a boarder.
By 1987 a snowboard World Cup was organized, using the term loosely, and by 1998 the sport, even though some ski resorts still banned boarding (Utah's Alta and Deer Valley among them; the Park City resort had lifted its ban a year earlier), was ushered into the Olympics.
In Nagano in 1998 the U.S. won two snowboarding medals — a bronze each by the men and the women in halfpipe. In Salt Lake it has already won four —18-year-old Kelly Clark won the women's halfpipe Sunday to set up the men's sweep Monday. That's six medals already and there's still a giant slalom race to come.
In history and by contrast, the United States has won just 27 alpine skiing medals overall (eight by men, 19 by women) and exactly one medal apiece — ever — in nordic jumping and nordic skiing. And in these Games, the ratios aren't expected to get much better.
If snowboarding isn't the frozen wave of the future for American winter sports, there might not be one.
Time will tell, of course. Maybe the rest of the world will catch up. Maybe American snowboarders will get bored if their sport becomes too mainstream and they'll go off in the corner and play hackey sack.
But for now, in the frozen world of winter sports, Scandinavians may own cross country, Europeans may own downhill skiing, the Dutch may own speedskating. Canada may own curling and hockey (well, it would like to own hockey), and some guy from Germany may own the luge, but it's America that owns snowboarding.
After one epic, huge, sick, immense, super clean, killer of a day at Park City, that much is clear.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
|
|
February 12, 2002
|
