He’s On Board With Dudes, Shred Bettys

I’m stoked.

Wearing my baggy, deep-hanging pants, my wraparound sunglasses and my toque, thinking about getting some part of my body pierced, I’m ready to let this column rip.

How could you not be excited about sitting at the top of Mt. Yakebitai on a cold, foggy, snowy Sunday afternoon, watching the world’s fastest shredders race in the first snowboarding competition ever in the Winter Olympics?

Until I met world-class snowboarders for the first time a couple of days ago, I confess that, like almost everyone else who prefers getting down a mountain with skis and poles, I thought they were knuckledraggers. I’m sure they think I’m a pinhead.

No more. I’ve seen the light.

As one of my hipper colleagues said during a news conference with the U.S. team, “My sincere congratulations to all of you. You guys rule.”

Of course, some rule more than others.

I some day can boast that I witnessed the race that produced the sport’s first Olympic gold medalist, Canadian Ross Rebagliati, who came from eighth place after the first run Sunday to win the men’s giant slalom.

It was so cool, I’ll be back Monday. That’s when the women, the Shred Bettys, compete in their giant slalom. Among the medal contenders is Lisa Kosglow of Boise, Idaho, who promises, “It’s going to be hot. These women rip.”

But even the free riders will tell you that the main event doesn’t start until Thursday, when most of the sport’s superstars show off their stalefish, tweaks and ho-hos for the judges in the halfpipe.

“The pipe is sick,” says the No. 1-ranked American, Todd Richards of Breckenridge, Colo. “So stop by and see some stuff.”

(Timeout for a glossary note: Remember when bad became good? Now, sick is bad, which means it’s good.)

Who knew?

Snowboarding, which began in the United States in the ‘70s, didn’t have its first national championship until 1982. The athletes, known then as snurfers because the sport resembled surfing on snow, weren’t organized enough, which was one reason snowboarding attracted their type in the first place. Most of them were searching for a discipline that was so undisciplined.

Sixteen years later, they’ve joined the most established of establishments, the Olympics.

It wasn’t their idea.

The International Olympic Committee wanted them.

That’s not because Juan Antonio Samaranch saw them in the Winter X Games and thought they were sick.

It’s because they’re part of the world’s fastest-growing winter sport, one attracting Generation X and Generation Next audiences that television networks target after the figure skating crowd is tucked in.

In short, IOC officials smelled money.

As they did with mountain biking and beach volleyball in the Summer Olympics, they staged a coup and took over snowboarding.

The man known as the sport’s Michael Jordan, Norway’s Terje Haakonsen, rebelled, comparing the IOC to the Mafia and declaring he would stay home in Laguna Beach instead of going to the Olympics.

Most of the sport’s other stars applauded him, then caught the next plane for Japan.

The bottom line is that they like money too. There’s sponsorships in these hills, as was apparent when so many shredders showed up for a media opportunity at Nike’s headquarters Saturday that not all of them could fit on the stage.

“There’s a fine line between selling out and buying in,” Richards says.

For instance, there was the controversy over uniforms. Snowboarders are so individualistic that most didn’t want to wear them.

Once they put them on, though, some decided they were pretty cool.

“It’s like a wedding dress,” says Michele Taggart of Salem, Ore. “It’s part of tradition.”

As a result, they look like everyone else wandering around the athletes’ village.

But they’re not.

“A lot of the other athletes treat us like outsiders,” says Derek Heidt of Canada. “We go into a room, we see them whispering.”

“They treat us like freaks,” says one of his teammates, Lori Glazier. “They give us that smirky look and say, ‘So you’re a snowboarder.’ I say, ‘How can you tell? Because we’re laughing and having fun?’ ”

That pretty much describes Barrett Christy of Vail, Colo.

Unlike most snowboarders, she dreamed of competing in the Olympics some day.

“When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a fireman, then a Solid Gold dancer, then an Olympian,” she says.

There were some detours along the way.

According to a profile provided by Nike, Christy was a “mall chick, mod chick, the party chick, the jock chick, even a hippie chick--selling Guatemalan blankets in parking lots,” before carving snow and becoming “The Queen of the Big Air.”

As one of the few women with her own signature board, Christy, 26, earns a good living now but says all she really needs is “a ski pass and $20 a week.”

She and the other snowboarders at Nike the other day were talking about the sport when their coaches walked in.

The athletes, proving once again that they’re different, applauded.

“Without our coaches, we’d be screwed,” Canadian Trevor Andrew said. “They don’t push us. They just make sure we’re having fun and aren’t stressed.”

Bob Knight might not have appreciated such a salute. Canadian Coach Colin Blake did.

“Thanks, Trev,” he said. “I love you, dude.”

Man, that’s sick.