Snowboarding Is Not a Sport and Other Observations from the Winter Olympics
by Jeff Lewis

Snowboarding Is Not a Sport—Yet

Snowboarding is a great addition to the Olympics, particularly snowboard cross, which has the potential to be the best Olympic sport.  The roller derby aspects of it are very entertaining and add a little upper body emphasis lacking in almost all winter sports.  In fact, all three snowboard events make my Top 11 Favorite Olympic Events for 2006:

  1. Selected figure skating performances:
    1. Mary Carillo on Olympic Ice, one of the best sports commentary shows I have ever seen
    2. Matt Savoie, US
    3. Johnny Weir's short program, US
    4. Shizuka Arakawa, Japan (gold ladies)
    5. Daisuke Takahashi, Japan
    6. Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon
    7. Shen Xue & Zhao Hongbo, China (bronze pairs)
    8. Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto, US (silver dance)
    9. Margarita Drobiazko & Povilas Vanagas
  2. All alpine skiing, especially when Bode Miller nearly crashes
  3. Snowboard cross
  4. Short track speed skating, especially the relays
  5. Freestyle moguls
  6. Snowboard half pipe
  7. 30 km women's cross country, with the benefit of Tivo fast forward
  8. Curling, in small doses
  9. Biathlon, also with fast forward
  10. Ski jumping
  11. Alpine snowboarding

Biggest disappointment: I missed the man-on-man luge.

As you can see, snowboarding greatly added to my enjoyment of the Olympics.  However, both snowboard cross and the half pipe competition have major flaws that need to be overcome before attaining sport status:

1. Flappy Attire & Lack of Imagination

Far and away the biggest problem with competitive snowboading—alpine events excluded—is the baggy clothing worn by the participants.  If you are participating in an event that requires speed or quick spins in the air, it makes no sense to wear loose fitting clothing.  In fact, it is a sign of an immature sport and, apart from Shaun White, the tricks performed by the half-pipe competitors are not that impressive when compared to the standards of gymnastics or diving.  I'd love to see a great gymnast like Alexi Nemov spend a couple of years practicing half pipe to see what he could come up with.

The "cool" knuckledragger clothes favored by the current batch of Olympians ties snowboarding to its skateboarding roots, which is a disservice to both sports.  For one, it limits the creativity of snowboarding—it's just plain silly that rail grabs (so necessary to skateboarding) are an integral part of snowboard half pipe, given that the boards are strapped to the feet.  There are countless other difficult positions that competitors could devise to add individual flair.

Solution:

  1. The FIS should either implement strict attire rules, such as "competitors must wear full jump suits with a bagginess factor of between 8.5-10.0," or push snowboarders to show a little more personality, while dressing aerodynamically.  Possible outfits are:
    1. Virtually any non-caped super hero.  The Silver Surfer seems like a good fit.
    2. Codpieces, with built in support systems.
    3. Tight flannel union suits, with flap in back.
    4. Bikinis, mostly for the women's competition.
  2. Snowboarders should work on their back flexibility so that they can perform laybacks like Shizuka Arakawa while spinning.
  3. Snowboard cross competitors should wear external padding that makes them look intimidating.  If they are going to continue to wear outfits that aren't aerodynamic, they should draw heavily upon the styles worn by the Ayatollah of Rock n' Rolla and his followers in The Road Warrior.

2. Terrible Commentators for Half Pipe

Half pipe got plenty of air time, but the commentators never got around to explaining the rules (which I probably now know more than they do after thumbing through the 114 pages of official snowboarding rules).  Consequently, the competitors' point totals often seemed random, especially after falls.

It didn't help that the commentators didn't modulate their excitement levels well, giving the impression that all runs were equally exciting.  They left it up to the viewers to figure out why Shaun White was head and shoulders above the competition, which, according to the astute eye of my wife, was largely due to his ability to complete his full rotations before landing, rather than cheating them like most of the competition.

Solution:

  1. Hire Danny Kass for the next Olympics.  Based on his interviewing style, he's not going to overexude, and he probably will be able to give a little insight.

3. Not Enough Snowboarding Events

We need more snowboarding events so we don't have to watch quite so much bobsledding.

Solution:

  1. There should be a really, really long snowboard cross event with a frozen stream in the middle and maybe an animatronic bear, although the bear might be too much.
  2. Jousting.
  3. Two-man snowboarding, with both participants sharing a large board; this would work front-to-buttocks like the Lambada or front-to-front like the waltz.
  4. Steeplechase snowboarding, tethered to a horse.
  5. Snowboard pentathlon: any combination of four suggestions above and existing events, but with an archery component (probably not a good idea for the half pipe, given the proximity of the fans and likely dizziness of competitors).

Other Observations from the Winter Olympics

  1. As I mentioned before, Olympic Ice on USA Network was the best televised aspect of the games, at least if you like figure skating.  Do you think, perhaps, their "I'm Here, I'm Weir" and "Weir Eye for the Skate Guy" segments were suggesting something?
  2. Searches for "tanith belbin hot" skyrocketed during the ice dancing competition.  On Yahoo!, searches for "ice dancing" shot up 3,000%.
  3. I wish there was at least one event that let Winter Olympians throw things—you'd think there'd at least be a snowball throwing competition.  The problem is that Europeans created most of the sports and if there's one thing that Europeans suck at, it's throwing (team handballers and water polo players excluded).
  4. I would like to see an obstacle course event that includes a segment where you throw bells and rings into a jester's mouth from atop a steed.  The best part of the obstacle course, though, would be the Winter Fairy Tale theme, which would allow Scandinavian designers to conceptualize Jack Frost, snow witches, trolls, grabby trees and The Heat Mizer, and turn them into composite-material, clean-lined obstacles for competitors to climb over and ski around.
  5. Germany won 29 medals and thanks to my Tivo's fast forward I saw almost none of them.  There's just not that much joy in watching a dozen different types of tobogganing, except, of course for the man-on-man luge.  I'd like to see them stack a few more men on top, though; I think the world craves the four man luge.
  6. I love the strange posture required for the leg-first finish in short track speed skating.  It looks like they've already passed the line five meters back and are hunched over resting, and then they poke one skate forward every so daintily.
  7. The Summer Olympics needs to develop an event like the short track relay.  Stick it on a basketball court and have about thirty sprinters run around in small circles.  I would recommend that—in order to firmly differentiate it from short track ice skating—the competitors wear steel-soled shoes rather than skates, and that the floor is an oscillating electromagnet, so that participants have to time their steps precisely, like well-trained show horses.
  8. I often think it is a shame that I am not a professional Olympic sport creator.

Copyright Jeff Lewis 2006.

Jeff can be reached at jeff@babblog.com.

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