But by the time the 2002 Salt Lake Games came on, the US riders were dominating world competition and the sport was dominating the TV ratings.
In America, that translates to mainstream.
In fact, as some projected, looking at the aging population of ski boomers and the growing ranks of young boarders, it would just be a matter of time until snowboarding led skiing in the marketplace.
But then something else started to develop, subtly at first: The advent of free ride skiing on twin-tip skis.
Free riders cruise the same terrain as boarders, but coming off a ramp or pipe wall, fly higher and do tricks with more variety, owing to the fact that they can move their skis independently.
A free skier might hit the ramp moving forward, sometimes skiing backward and looking back over his shoulder. The freedom of free riding begins with the fact twin tips can ski backward and forward equally well, setting up a variety of trick possibilities.
The appearance of free riding may be interesting in itself. But then consider a National Sporting Goods Association survey showing the trends in snowboarding, and skiing might have taken a counterintuitive turn. To wit: from 2004 to 2005, the number of skiers rose nationally nearly 17 percent, from 5.9 million to 6.9 million. During the same period, snowboard participation fell 10 percent, from 6.6 million to 6 million.
Perhaps more significant is that this constitutes the first drop in snowboarding since there was snowboarding.
Nor are the numbers, by themselves, positively convincing that some megatrend is under way. Since 2001, skiing numbers dropped from 7.7 million to 6.9 million in 2005, after an all-time low of 5.9 million the year before. During the same period, snowboarding grew from 5.3 million to its height of 6.6 million in 2004, before falling to 6 million the next year.
