Snowboarding - Competition

Competition

There are several competitive events that snowboards compete in today. The three main ones that are seen are the Giant Parallel Slalom, the half-pipe, and Snowboard Cross which are run in the Olympics and the X Games. The Giant Parallel slalom started off in the Nagano Olympics, when boarders would race against the clock weaving in and out of blue and red gates; similar to how the skiing competition is. Eventually in the Salt Lake City Olympics, the rules were modified so borders would race each other in nine rounds instead. It will begin will a timed round, where the top 16 qualification times will advance borders with the best times into the next round. Next, two borders will compete against each other head-to-head. These borders will race twice (once from each side) the winner of both to go on into the next round. If each border only wins once, then it depends on the times of each border combined rounds. The final two riders compete for the gold and silver and the semi-finalist compete for the bronze. The more known competition is the Half-pipe, where borders ride up and down a half-cylinder in order to complete tricks and acrobatics using the speed and incline. Most borders gain speed in order to project themselves up the wall in order to create and perform tricks for judges to score them on. There are five judges at the finish line, which will score the borders on their overall impression of the routine, technical merit, the height of tricks, rotation, fall, and standard air. Each score is between 0 and 10. Each border has two runs down the half-pipe with only their best score being used. The most recent competitive event that was added is the snowboard cross, which is a downhill race that includes bumps, jumps, and sometimes full body contact. It’s a race to the finish line down an inclined track.