During the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics many eyes will be focused on the Snowboarding events that will be taking place. Although snowboarding only became an Olympic event at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, the sport has grown into one of the most popular Winter Olympic events over the past 10 years. The thrill of watching the competitors fly through the air in the half-pipe discipline and the array of insane tricks that come with that event has made snowboarding ever so popular all over the world.

Snowboarding was inspired from two other very popular sports, skateboarding and surfing, and has many superficial similarities to skiing. Snowboarding was first developed during the1960’sand 1970’s in the United States. The first ever actual snow board was invented andmanufactured in Utah during the 1970’s and was then commemorated in 2007 by the United States mint.This fact however is always argued among some people claiming that the ‘actual’ first snowboard, the Snurfer, was developed in Michigan sometime in 1965 by Sherman Poppen, who made the board for hisdaughter. The first World Championship for the half-pipe was in 1983 at Soda Springs, California and then the first World Cup of Snowboarding was contested in 1985 and was held in Zurs, Austria. Snowboarding will be one of the most watched spectator events during the Vancouver Olympics.

Snowboarding has many different disciplines listed as competition events, some of which are not contested during the Winter Olympics:

As above, the competition events for the Vancouver Winter Olympics will be half-pipe, snowboard cross as well as the parallel giant slalom, all of which include a men’s and women’s event.

At the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, snowboarding was made up of two events, the half-pipe and the individual giant slalom. In the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City the individual giant slalom was replaced by the parallel giant slalom and then for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino the snowboard cross event was introduced as an Olympic discipline.

The half-pipe event consists of one snowboarder entering the pipe for his/her run. During the run the competitor must include a number of different acrobatic jumps, twists and tricks on the inside of the half-cylinder shaped snow tube. The judging is based on the riders overall height and style of tricks.

For the parallel giant slalom two riders will race head to head down the course having to navigate through a series gates with the fastest rider advancing to the next round. In all, the top racers will run the course a total of nine times, the ninth run being the Gold medal opportunity.

The snowboard cross event consists of four racers starting in a pack down the course, racing against each other over terrain, off jumps and off ramps. At the conclusion of the heat the top two racers move on to the next round.

In the case of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games the snowboarding venue is located on Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver. Access to the mountain is provided by an exceptional highway from top to bottom. The venue capacity for the snowboarding events is 8000 people. All of the construction for the snowboarding events during the Vancouver Olympics commenced in May of 2006 and all improvements were complete by the fall of 2007.

Here is the VANOC (Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic committee) report for the sustainable attributes for this particular venue:

The snowboarding events are going to be something of a spectacle during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. The excitement will be unparalleled to any other competition in the Vancouver Olympics, so make sure you get your tickets now for those amazing events.