Skiing and Snowboarding
Skiing
Skiing was invented by pre-historic Nordic people and Samis(one of the indigenous people of northern Europe). They used ski's for transportation, hunting purposes, and military maneuvers. In 2004 a primitive ski was found in a peat bog in Hoting, Sweden by Joel Berglund. Carbon dating revealed that the ski was from the year 1010. The first form of skiing was classified as nordic skiing because the bindings only held in the rider's boots at the toes leaving the heals unattached. In 1747 the Norwegian military developed a team that used ski's to spy on the Swedish enemy. These ski's attached both the toes and the heals to the ski giving the rider more control when going downhill. This was the start of alpine or "downhill" skiing. Then in 1850 Sondre Norheim have rise to Modern Skiing when he developed the first stiff bindings. By using pieces of twisted wet birch roots he tied down his boots and as the roots dried they became hard. This gave Norheim much more control of his ski's and led him to developing new turning motions. Some believe that the development of Modern Skiing Should be credited to Mathias Zdarsky of Austria who developed the technique of pushing one ski at an angle to the fall line to control speed. Zdarsky's techniques inspired Hannes Shnieder to develop his own set of stopping and turning maneuvers. Which turned into the first set of ski instruction. These techniques have led to the development of most Modern Skiing Techniques. Skiing began to get very popular after this and in 1921 the first Slalom race was held in Switzerland. Three years later Nordic skiing competitions became a part of the first Winter Olympics and in 1936 Alpine skiing events were included.
Skiing Today
Since Modern Skiing begun the sport has exploded in popularity all over the world. Today skiing is the most popular Winter sport boasting more than 45 million fans. Thousands of ski resorts have been opened all over the world attracting millions of visitors each year. The development of skiing has also led to the creation of another great winter sport SNOWBOARDING!
Equipment
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Snowboarding
Credit for The very first snowboard cannot be pin-pointed to one specific person. One of the first commercially produced snowboards was known as the "Snurfer"it was created in the 1960's by Sherman Poppen in Muskegon, Michigan. He came up with the idea as a toy for his daughter, he attached two ski's together and tyed a rope to the front. When it started to gain popularity he began to commercially produce the "snurfer" now made of a piece of plywood shaped like a skateboard deck with metal tacks to hold the riders boots in place. From here people began to catch on to snowboarding and Over the next couple decades as snowboarding began to gain popularity the sport's pioneer's began to emerge.
Pioneers
- Dimitrije Milovich
- Sonny Sini
- Jake Burton Carpenter(founder of Burton Snowboards)
- Tom Sims(founder of Sims Snowboards)
- Chuck Barfoot(founder of Barfoot Snowboards)
- Mike Olson(founder of Gnu Snowboards)
Snowboarding Today
Today more than 3.4 million people snowboard and since 1997 the number of snowboarders has increased by 77% making snowboarding the fastest growing winter sport in the US. Since the start of the sport and the days of the "snurfer" technological advancements have led to the creation of equipment that has taken the sport to unimaginable hights.
Equipment
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Survey
Contact Info
Chris Raymond
CS 403
SERC B 123
cpo23@unh.edu