A Different Culture

Snowboarding, sport of competitive amplitude and amped competitors, takes its second run at the Winter Olympics this month with expectations decidedly more mellow than the first.

This time, maybe the men’s giant slalom gold medalist won’t be busted for marijuana.

This time, maybe the actual participants will receive more publicity than the Norwegian superstar boycotting the competition.

This time, maybe the American snowboarders will actually find something decent to wear.

“The last Olympics in Japan, we had the worst outfits ever,” says Shannon Dunn, bronze medalist in the women’s halfpipe at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. “I’m sorry, whoever designed them.... Our snowboard outfits were horrible. Mine was probably two sizes too big. I felt like I was wearing a big trash bag.

“You know, snowboarding is about style and looking good--and then you have to wear these horrible outfits. I don’t know. I’m hoping for the best this year.”

It was a culture collision waiting to happen, from the moment the International Olympic Committee determined in the mid-1990s that its Winter Games might be a tad staid and should consider adding some events that might appeal to a younger audience and noticed that quite a few kids seemed fascinated with this curious amalgamation of skiing, surfing and skateboarding.

Snowboarding was a boom sport, participation in the United States almost doubling from 1988 to 1995. But it was also a free-form, do-it-yourself sport that prided itself on individualism and self-expression. Snowboarders thought young, acted young, were young--and that included everything from attire to attitude to midair halfpipe maneuvers carrying such labels as “roast beef air,” “misty flip” and the “McTwist.”

It was a language completely foreign to the conservative IOC, and the ensuing fallout was hardly surprising.

The sport went into its first Olympics kicking and screaming. In December 1995, the IOC granted four snowboarding events Olympic medal status: men’s and women’s giant slalom, in which two competitors at a time race downhill, and men’s and women’s halfpipe, in which riders zigzag across a cylindrical bowl of ice performing aerial stunts that are graded by judges for such elements as number of rotations in the air, overall impression and amplitude--the height of each maneuver.

However, there was one crucial proviso. The IOC decreed that the event be coordinated and controlled by the International Ski Federation (FIS), rather than the sport’s existing governing body, the International Snowboarding Federation (IFS).

Many snowboarders were outraged, among them Norway’s Terje Haakonsen, one of the sport’s biggest names. He compared the IOC to the Mafia and announced he was boycotting the 1998 Games.

“Snowboarding is about fresh tracks and carving powder and being yourself and not being judged by others,” he said at the time. “It’s not about nationalism and politics and big money. Snowboarding is everything the Olympics isn’t.”

Haakonsen went surfing while the first official Olympic snowboarding competition plunged from one controversy to another. Three days after Canada’s Ross Rebagliati won the gold medal in the men’s parallel giant slalom, the IOC announced that Rebagliati had tested positive for marijuana and would be stripped of his medal.

The Canadian Olympic Assn. filed an appeal, dragging the sport and the IOC through a legal skirmish that bordered on low comedy. Rebagliati claimed he hadn’t smoked marijuana in 10 months but inhaled second-hand smoke at a party held at his hometown of Whistler just before leaving for the Olympics. The Canadians also argued that no Olympic athlete had ever been disqualified for using a non-performance-enhancing drug and that marijuana was not on the IOC’s list of prohibited substances.

Rebagliati was eventually reinstated as Olympic champion, but the incident clouded the snowboarding competition in Nagano and continues to hang over the sport as it readies for Round 2 in Salt Lake City.

“Everyone [in the media] seems to like that story,” says Ross Powers of South Londonderry, Vt., returning for his second Olympics after winning the bronze medal in the men’s halfpipe in 1998. “About half the interviews we do, that gets brought up.”

Dunn, who lives in Carnelian Bay, Calif., believes the U.S. media “didn’t really cover” the snowboarding competition in Nagano.

“A big reason was just because of that whole Ross Rebagliati fiasco,” she says. “And then on top of that, they didn’t really get snowboarding. They didn’t know how to cover it. I think they were pretty skeptical about the whole event. They didn’t know what to do with it, so they didn’t do too much with it. I think it got misrepresented by what happened with Ross.... It’s kind of a bummer it had to happen the first year of our Olympics.”

Circe Wallace, a sports marketing specialist who has been involved with snowboarding for 15 years, takes a different view.

“Personally, I thought it was hilarious,” she said. “I thought it was the perfect representation of how the Olympics perceives snowboarding. Here we are--we’re still anti-establishment, no matter what you do. You can put us in the Olympics, but we’re still getting in trouble.

“It’s just the nature of the beast. And, thank God for it. I think snowboarding is all about self-expression. I think it’s all about freedom. I think it’s all about getting outside of the norm....

“The only reason that snowboarding got any exposure in ’98 was because Ross Rebagliati was busted for dope. And that’s the only reason that anyone got invited to Letterman. That’s the only reason snowboarding made it on the map in ’98.”

If the IOC was embarrassed, the sensation quickly passed. Taking note of the popularity of the Winter X Games, which made their debut in 1997 and feature such “extreme” sports as snowmobiling and snow mountain bike racing, the IOC has added 10 events to its 2002 Winter Games agenda, one of them a rather intense head-first sliding event known as skeleton.

“I think the IOC, like all of us, is trying to be more relevant and find events that are more a part of youth culture,” says Jim Page, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s managing director for sports performance.

“More or less, the same concept was followed with freestyle skiing [which became an Olympic sport in 1992] before the X Games. It was a sport that became very attractive to youth, had a different and more exciting culture for young people. The International Ski Federation got involved and found a way to run competitions and got it in the Games.

“I think that process is what happened with snowboard as well.”

Svein Romstad, general secretary of the International Luge Federation, believes the IOC needed to add events that appeal to a younger audience, particularly during the Winter Games.

“Being a winter-sports person, I think that’s where we separate ourselves from the Summer Games,” he says. “A more living-on-the-edge-type deal versus the Summer [Games], which have much more traditional events. I think it’s very, very good for the Games. I think it’s a natural progression. Times have changed.”

Romstad watched some of the snowboarding competition in Nagano in 1998 and said the sport “does appeal to a younger demographic. It broadens your demographics. It makes for good television and it’s unique. I think it’s a very positive development, without a doubt.”

Even if it comes equipped with its unique baggage, some pieces filled with styles of Olympic-issue clothing many self-respecting snowboarders wouldn’t be caught dead in.

Olympic tradition and snowboarding iconoclasm clashed again when U.S. competitors were handed their uniforms for the Nagano Games. Uniforms? Snowboarders have their traditions as well--one is to come as you are, another is to do your thing. Many were aghast at the idea of being told what to wear, and when to wear it.

Dunn cringes when recalling the cowboy hat, scarf and long coat ensemble the U.S. team had to wear during the opening ceremony.

“All the pants were tapered, high-waisted, just no style--full ‘80s style,” Dunn says. “I couldn’t believe it. Of all the outfits, I think the U.S. had the worst. They were just so cheesy.”

And then there was the standardized U.S. team apparel the snowboarders were required to wear during and in between competition.

“I was dying, having to wear that stuff,” Dunn says. “It was humiliating.... Because it really makes a difference. You have to walk around in these hideous clothes. It’s just so bad--you have to wear them.

“I was roommates with Cara-Beth Burnside at the time, and we could not put on our clothing. They told us everyone’s got to wear the jeans with the white polo shirt or whatever and you have to go to breakfast in this outfit. And we’re, like, sorry, there’s no way we’re wearing that stuff.

“So we walked out in our own clothes and we got so shunned. Everyone stared at us, and then we got reprimanded. So we had to change our clothes. And then we just joked about it--we tucked our shirts in and pulled our pants way up high.”

To a snowboarder, this is no trivial matter. Powers says it factored into his decision to leave the U.S. snowboarding team after the 1998 Olympics.

“Snowboarding is kind of like an individual sport,” he says. “That’s one of the reasons I switched off the U.S. team and just ride for Burton, for Polo [Sport], my own companies. Because they want you to be your own person instead of, like, being on a team.

“It would be awesome if we could wear our own clothes. But those are the people funding the team and getting us there and everything. So I think we can wear their stuff for a week or so.”

This never happens at X Games, though. Dunn and Powers have participated in both competitions and appreciate the X Games as a snowboarding event that caters to snowboarders.

So why bother with the Olympics at all?

Apparently, one Olympic tradition still holds after all these years: the allure of a gold, silver or bronze medal.

“The X Games are cool because you get to hang out with a bunch of other action-sport dudes, like the snowmobilers and the freestylers,” Powers says. “Definitely, all the [top] snowboarders showed up there. It’s probably the biggest [snowboarding] event this year.

“But the X Games are more within the snowboarding community. The Olympics are, like, the whole world. Everyone knows what the Olympics are. The Olympics are for everyone, from kids to their grandparents.”

Asked which championship she would rather win, the X Games or the Olympics, Dunn does not hesitate.

“The Olympics,” she replies. “Obviously, the X Games are yearly, so there’s not as much pressure to win. Because if you don’t do well one year, you can come back and do it again the next year. The Olympics is just every four years, it’s once or twice in your lifetime. It’s kind of a rare opportunity.”

So they will assemble again in Salt Lake City and risk the attendant indignities and assaults on the freedom of self-expression that come with the Olympic rings.

Besides, Dunn says, she has already checked out the new uniforms on the Internet.

“The things I’ve seen,” she reports, “aren’t that bad.”