Americans have seldom challenged Alpine skiers’ dominance in skiing. Skiing is a very expensive sport that Americans have taken to as a recreation, but very few have been brought up in the kind of skiing environment necessary to compete. Even Americans living in the Rocky Mountain region treat skiing as a vacation sport, compared to Alpine communities that depend on skiing for transportation and communication. Victories, like the Picabo Street in the 1998 Nagano Olympics, are rare exceptions.

Snowboarding, by contrast, has been developed and dominated largely by Americans.

The first snowboard was built in Sherman Poppen’s garage in 1967. Many early designs borrowed from surfing and, until 1985, metal edges were included on all snowboards. By 1993 there were over fifty different snowboard manufacturers.

Generally cheaper than skiing, snowboarding was first viewed as low-class and countercultural, and many American resorts banned it. Gradually the Snowboarding Outreach Society began to gain acceptance for the sport and for the competitive racing begun in 1981. After Stratton Mountain in Vermont offered the first snowboarding instruction in 1986, the sport gained respect and widespread popularity.

Women also established themselves as athletes in the sport competing against men.

The emphasis on jumps and spins as opposed to speed has given women equal chances.

The sport has become increasingly professionalized in the 1990s, sponsored by manufacturers and covered since 1993 on ESPN. With its emphasis on daredevil antics, snowboarding has also been a mainstay of X-games.