A little story…

How skiing was born

To find the true origins of skiing it’s necessary to go all the way back to at least 3000BC to the island of Royoy in Norway, it was during that time that people were painting on cave walls depicting men with skis strapped to their feet. A pair of skis were found in a bog near Hoting in Sweden that have been dated to at least 2,500BC. It has been said that in the wide expanse between modern-day Siberia and Mongolia, in an area know as Altai, that the ski was invented before the wheel.

But the true birth of the ski ( as depicted in Chinese hieroglyphs as “Travelling by Ski”) was in Lapland were the natives used a ski resembling a modern ski – a major difference was that was one was longer than the other – the shorter one being under-shod with seal skin and was used to push forward.
There is a legend that in 1500AD the King of Sweden retuned to his subjects from Norway with two “skis”. Also from the 16th century came the first published manual of skiing which was produced in Lapland. In 1860 the first official race was held in Oslo – this competition is still run annually.
The first ski club was formed in 1833, but the first official club was the Trysil Club formed in 1861. It wasn’t until much later the skiing finally arrived in Italy

The spread of skiing in Italy is all thanks to one Adolf Kind, from Switzerland who, in 1897, brought a couple of pair of skis made from ash-wood from his country and taught the basics to his friends. These enthusiasts were impressed by this new novelty and formed a ski club.
In 1901 it became the Turin Ski Club - the first one in Italy. This trend was continued in Milan and Genoa in the following years. Skiing impressed the Italians and it was used during military exercises. In 1909 the first competitive race in Italy was won by the King’s son "el diau". In 1913 the Italian Ski Federation (the future FIS) was formed and in 1930 the FISI (Italian Federation of Winter Sports) was also formed, this also included the ski jump and the luge.
Other events were added later such as the Special Slalom, which was dominated by the Englishman, Lunn and the Austrian, Schneider.

After much discussion, skiing was first accepted as an Olympic sport in 1936 with medals being awards in the downhill and slalom. In the 1952 games the giant slalom was added and in 1988 the SuperG. The skiing world cup was initiated in 1967

Snowbording is born

During the sixties Monoskiing was all the craze, and seeing this Sherman Popper of Michigan, USA,(to amuse his sons) glued together two skis in an effort to produce a better Monoski. But when the boys used his new invention he realised the novelty value of his new board as being akin to surfing on waves, so he added metal edges and a new world was born.

Mr Poppers registered the name, gave up his right in the Brunswick Company and Snow Surfing began to spread around the US. An enterprising 14 year old boy, Jack Burton Carpenter, adapted and improved the new Surfer in order to enable a user to have better control and performance and in 1977 produced a new Surfer more like a monoski.
In the meantime D Milovitch of New York, "the Winterstick" elaborated on so-called, prototypes, of boards constructed of glass-fiber with a PTEX base. But the increased costs of the his new boards meant that this was line was abandoned

A producer of Skate and surf boards, Tom Sims produced the Ski-board from a skateboard with a plastic base he later improved this by constructing one from fiberglass similar to that made by the “Winterstick”. Later – based on the monoski – he produced another board with a slight carve in the edge.
It was this board that was used in the world championships in Colorado in 1981, confirming this design as the most successful and thus the most profitable. Snowboarding was taken up by the general public during the eighties but this design was still far removed from modern design

Through skillful and intelligent business skills, boarding moved to Europe, where the new boards were manufactured by the mass producers of skis, who made many improvements in construction quality. From the first competitions boarding evolved and improved with some exceptional athletes of great skill until the new sport of “extreme boarding” arrived.
A note should be made of an American named Weber who, in 1973, patented (in exact and minute detail) a “Snow Board” which is the basis for modern designs used during the Nineties and onwards. It is unfortunate that he was unable to get his design into production as it took the major manufactures almost ten years to get to the same stage.