ABSTRACT
In the 1960s, an American surfer, Sherman Poppen, developed what he called the ‘snurfer’, a kind of a single water ski for use on snow with a traction pad on the middle and a rope fastened at the front. The device was primitive and gave little control, and the rides were risky. The snurfer was developed further by skiing and surfing enthusiasts such as Tom Sims, Dimitrije Milovich and Jake Burton Carpenter. By the end of the 1970s, the snowboard had found its form more or less. In the mid-and late 1980s, stimulated by further technical innovations and by a televised world-wide professional tour starting in 1986-7, snowboarding developed into one of the main sport subcultures among young people. In the mid-1990s, an estimated 2 million people snowboarded all over the world. Perhaps surprisingly, more snowboards were sold than alpine skis.
