Turin – Nate Holland thinks figure skating is great, for his mom. Bud Keene likens curling to “horseshoes on ice.” You don’t really want to hear what Danny Kass thinks of doubles luge.
These guys are snowboarders. More than that, they are representatives of a new Olympic era, raised on the so-called “action sports” that have come to represent not just the X Games, but now the Olympic Games. Along with freestyle skiing – which will include eye-popping inverted aerials for the first time since its introduction in 1992 – snowboarding finds itself in the unusual position of winter sports poster child in 2006. Snowboarders have grown from dirtbags to darlings since their addition to the Olympic menu in 1998.
“This is what sports are now,” U.S. Snowboarding head coach Peter Foley offered as an explanation for his sport’s newfound position in the Olympic limelight. “Whether the Olympics are trying to be cool or not, these are just sports today. This is just the evolution.”
Foley, along with U.S. halfpipe head coach Keene, remembers the not-so-distant past, when the only media attention their sport garnered at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano was Canadian giant slalom gold medalist Ross Rebagliati having his medal temporarily stripped after testing positive for marijuana. Never mind that Americans Ross Powers and Shannon Dunn won bronze medals in the inaugural Olympic halfpipe contest. The memory that lingers for Foley is a Sports Illustrated story calling his sport a joke.
“We were so second-class, like ‘What are they doing here?”‘ Foley said. “I remember an article in Sports Illustrated just ripping the idea of snowboarding being an Olympic sport. And I remember Ross Powers sort of stumbled on his words in a press conference and swore or something, and that’s what the media focused on. Sports Illustrated said that snowboarders are dumb, basically, and it was a silly sport that shouldn’t be in the Olympics.”
These days, the tune has changed considerably. Even SI is on board, featuring a three-story snowboarding package last month that described snowboarding as “an American original.” Nowhere was the word “dumb” included.
“It really seems like people are keying on snowboarding this time around, really highlighting it,” Foley said. “It’s kind of funny.”
Jim McCarthy, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s head of delegation at the 2006 Games and U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association chairman from 1997-2002, was a major advocate for snowboarding’s inclusion as an Olympic discipline in 1998. He helped fast-track the sport as a discipline of skiing (falling under the governance of the International Skiing Federation) rather than a new sport with its own governing body, the International Snowboarding Federation. The move stirred more than a little controversy among dedicated snowboarders, but has since paid off handsomely for the Olympic image.
“By adding the sport, you grow the number of people who participate in one form or another and everything grows as a result, whether it’s snowboarding or freestyle skiing or anything else,” McCarthy said. “What the addition of snowboarding did and has done is cause all the other traditional disciplines to look at their race formats and reconsider whether it’s exciting for the spectator and whether it’s exciting for viewers watching on television.”
Appealing to new generation
McCarthy points to the importance of television to the Olympics, and says the current Olympic movement appeals to a new generation of sports fans through the addition of X Games-style disciplines. Examples include snowboardcross – a four-man kamikaze downhill race on a snowboard-specific course of jumps and bumps – and the new rules allowing inverted aerials to freestyle skiing competition, similar to the X Games competition known as “slopestyle.” Such additions, and the obvious danger involved, increase the excitement for spectators and thus the appeal. It also steals some thunder from more traditional sports at the Winter Games.
“I think the Olympics are looking at an X Games crossover, which is good. It continues to cause a sport like skiing to look beyond itself,” McCarthy said.
Viewership of the X Games from Aspen last month set a record for the second consecutive year, reaching 38.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. There was a 45 percent increase in households tuned into the games.
“A lot comes down to television,” McCarthy said. “One thing that strikes me is the number of current and former Olympians who say they got into ‘blank’ sport because they saw it on TV. It’s an incredible recruiting tool for participation in the U.S. Someone sees it on television and decides, ‘I can do that too.”‘
Excitement brings back fans
That’s the hope for advocates of both snowboardcross and freestyle skiing, the most recent evolution of high-flying daredevil aerobatics to the Games.
“I believe the new tricks and things we’re doing in the moguls have done a lot toward bringing the viewers back and getting them excited,” said Olympic freestyle skiing competitor Toby Dawson from Vail. “It’s absolutely going to draw more kids into the sport.”
Snowboardcross racer Holland sees the same thing happening in his sport of choice, which he describes as “short track speedskating on steroids.” Ultimately, however, he said the IOC’s decision to include snowboardcross in the Olympics does more for them than it does for him.
“I’m proud to be here, but I don’t care if it validates our sport or not,” Holland said. “We’re out there having the time of our lives and they can either join it, or beat it. But a lot of people are joining.”
Staff writer Scott Willoughbycan be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
