There once was a time long ago when skiing was all about freedom of expression, passion, true adrenaline and disco. The sport of skiing and its image matched the tremendous ground swell of political and social upheaval that was rocking traditional America. Mogul competitions ruled the day and inverts scored almost as high as a good crash. It was the 70s, probably skiing’s greatest time in its history.
Since then, we banned many things that one can do on skis. Some of these things, like ducking ropes, have been for our own safety. Some of these things, like skiing naked, have been because we’ve lost our sense of humor. One of these things, getting inverted inbounds and during competition, has been banned because we’ve failed to keep pace with our own sport. I do not advocate unsafe skiing, or people jumping inverted without experience or supervision. However, the ski resorts of America have allowed an egregious double standard to evolve between the sports of skiing and snowboarding.
Skiing has a new breed of participants who have grown up at our resorts with friends and peers who snowboard. A new set of tricks that are entirely snowboard-influenced have evolved, and many of them involve inverted maneuvers. Most resorts either have turned their heads to snowboard inverts in the terrain parks and in competition, or have decriminalized it to the point that it is common to see at any resort.
Because skiing was the only resort-based sport at the dawn of the dreaded 80s, we have been saddled with the legacy of litigation those years inspired. Snowboarding managed to sneak under the radar and has happily redefined the entire winter sports market ever since. Meanwhile, skiing is set to capitalize on snowboarding’s current shrinkage and we are being held back by the resorts that we helped build.
Quit arresting kids who invert. Go to the terrain park and the halfpipe and watch the new directions of our sport.
And bring your platform suede!
