Mark Ankenbauer riding the park at Mammoth Mountain p: Julien LeCorps
Big news across the wires yesterday while Americans were out on the waterfronts celebrating our independence with all the requisite red, white, and blue paraphernalia. The next time we have ourselves a Winter Olympics, there will be jumps and jibs under the feet of the world’s best snowboarders. The International Olympic Committee announced that men’s and women’s snowboard and skiing slopestyle will be the newest events added to the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
In 1998, when snowboard halfpipe was first introduced to the world’s second oldest competition, the pipe scene really began to take off. It could be the enticement of huge corporate sponsorships often reserved for Olympians, or the right to claim global bragging rights, but tricks in the stunt ditch started progressing exponentially once Olympic medals were on the line. Or could it be that once you get yourself an Olympic medal, it seems to be pretty hard to get into much trouble for anything (see Michael Phelps, Scotty Lago).
Either way, we’re pumped to see who will earn the honor to fly our flag three years from now, and with double corks in the air and hard-way-on-oppo-out on the rails already being standard fare, the Olympic runs should really be something to look forward to.
In other big news (if you’re into these type of things) joining slopestyle in the Olympic schedule of events are skiing halfpipe, women’s ski jumping, biathlon mixed relay, figure skating team event and luge team relay. And on the docket for the next IOC vote are roller sports, wakeboard and wushu. Check out the IOC web site for the rest of the details or read Transworld‘s take on it.
