What is snowboarding?
A: Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive sports activity that
involves descending a snow-covered slope while standing on a snowboard that
is usually attached to a rider's feet.
It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games.
The development of snowboarding was inspired by what?
A: Skateboarding, sledding, surfing, and skiing.
It was developed in the United States in what decade?
A: The 1960s.
When did it become a Winter Olympic Sport?
A: At Nagano in 1998.
When did modern snowboarding begin?
A: In 1965 when Sherman Poppen, an engineer in Muskegon,
Michigan, invented
a toy for his daughters.
He fastened two skis together and attached a rope to
one end for what reason?
A: So he would have some control as they stood on the board and glided
downhill.
It was dubbed the "snurfer" (combining snow and surfer)
by whom?
A: His wife Nancy.
The toy was so popular among his daughters' friends
that he did what>
A: He licensed the idea to a manufacturer, Brunswick Corporation.
How many snurfers were sold over the next decade?
A: About a million.
How many were sold in 1966 alone?
A: Over half a million snurfers.
In February 1968, Poppen organized the first what?
A: Snurfing competition at a Michigan ski resort that attracted enthusiasts
from all over the country.
One of those early pioneers was Tom Sims, a devotee of
what?
A: Skateboarding.
In the 1960s, as an eighth grader in Haddonfield,
New
Jersey, Sims crafted a snowboard in his school shop class by doing what?
A: Gluing carpet to the top of a piece of wood and attaching aluminum
sheeting to the bottom.
When did he produce commercial snowboards?
A: In the mid-70s.
In 1976, what two Welsh skateboard enthusiasts
developed their own snowboards to use at their local dry ski slope?
A: Jon Roberts and Pete Matthews.
During this same period, in 1977, Jake Burton
Carpenter, a Vermont native who had enjoyed snurfing since the age of 14,
impressed the crowd at a Michigan snurfing competition with what?
A: Bindings he had designed to secure his feet to the board.
That same year, he founded what?
A: Burton Snowboards in Londonderry, Vermont.
Eventually Burton would become the biggest what?
A: Snowboarding company in the business.
Burton's early designs for boards with bindings became
what?
A: The dominant features in snowboarding.
Where were the first competitions to offer prize money,
the National Snurfing Championship, held?
A: At Muskegon State Park in Muskegon, Michigan.
In 1979, Jake Burton Carpenter came from Vermont to
compete with a what?
A: A snowboard of his own design.
There were protests about Jake entering with a what?
A: A non-snurfer board.
Paul Graves, and others, advocated what?
A: That Jake be allowed to race.
A "modified" "Open" division was created and won by
Jake as what?
A: The sole entrant.
That race was considered the first competition for
snowboards and is the start of what?
A: Competitive snowboarding.