About Snowboarding
Evenyone knows Snowboarding is set in winter. It even says it in the name of the sport! In order to snowboard you need snow to glide over, and when it's cold enough for snow, it is almost always winter (Unless you live in a place that has cold temperatures all year round like Greenland, or Northern Canada). For snowboarding, you also need some kind of an incline, like a mountain.
The 2010 Olympic Halfpipe
For the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, one of the tallest halfpipes ever was built, on Cypress Mountain. This halfpipe in perticular was built with a grade of 18 degrees, and is 160m long, with 22 foot high walls!
The halfpipe starts at an elevation of 1003m, and finishes at 952m.
To make this massive halfpipe, they had to pack the snow so it was very dense. Then they had to carve out the inside snow to create a large crevice, and smooth out the remaining snow to create the halfpipe.
During this event, athletes take turns flying up the sides of the halfpipe, getting huge air and preforming difficult tricks to earn points before decending back down to the halfpipe.
Parallel Giant Slalom (P.G.S)
Another snowboarding olympic event is the P.G.S. The course at the 2010 Olympics had a grade of about 35%, and was 515m long. The course's starting elevation was 1133m, and it finished at 966m.
In this event, snowboards race head-to-head on two courses parallel to eachother. After the qualifying rounds, there is a 16 person tournament. The snowboarders continue to race until there is a winner.
Snowboard Cross (SBX)
Snowboard Cross is another snowboarding event that took place during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, at Cypress Mountain. The course had a grade of 18%,
and is about 1,130m. It starts with an elevation of 1175m and ends with an elevation of 966m.
In this olympic event, four snowboarders race down a slope of jumps and other obstacles. The two people across the finish line continue to the next round. They continue to compete until a winner is found.