Word: snowboarders
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...want Vivaldi or Wagner or Lloyd Webber, go figure skating. Snowboarding's sound tracks are different. Last week at the Olympic snowboard park, as riders launched into the air like skateboarders in the 120-m halfpipe course, Pearl Jam and Metallica ruled. Several riders chose as their personal song the rap group Cypress Hill's Hits from the Bong. That was appropriate. The International Olympic Committee had been hoping to create a buzz and draw in a generation of sports fans used to pierced noses when it added snowboarding as a full-medal sport to the Nagano Games. And buzz...
Under dark, wet snowfall deep in Washington State's North Cascades, Terje Haakonsen charges his snowboard across the finish line to victory at the Mount Baker Banked Slalom. Through the evergreen mists, he carves to a stop past a small group of racers, officials and assorted stragglers. Within inner circles, Haakonsen, 23, is considered the Michael Jordan of snowboarding, and Mount Baker possibly the sport's most respected event. But when Haakonsen finishes, there are no corporate sponsorships, no teams, no coaches, no flags, no network TV. A few ragged kids in wet gear cheer the best rider...
...sponsorship issue is just one battle in an ongoing war between snowboarding's two governing bodies, the I.S.F. (International Snowboard Federation) and the F.I.S. (Federation Internationale du Ski). The International Olympic Committee's 1996 decision to award Olympic-qualifying status to the F.I.S., organizer of skiing's World Cup circuit, nearly sparked violence at some European events. Says Fawcett: "The F.I.S. didn't want anything to do with us until they realized it was going to be an Olympic event and that there would be [TV] network interest and a great deal of money." Other riders felt the F.I.S...
...Snowboard makers have been busy too, developing boards for the growing number of children and adults joining the teenage boys who once dominated the sport. This year's trends include a longer board with deep side cuts that allow snowboarders to descend all kinds of terrain with greater control. Among the hot models: the Search by Sims ($365), Salomon's Directional 163 ST ($420), the Custom by Burton ($430) and Avalanche's Sanders148 for women...
...knows? Maybe someday a child on a snowboard will watch in awe as someone speeds by him on the slopes. "What was that?" he'll ask an older person. "They used to be called skiers...