What Comes Up, Must Come Down

Fierce Competition

For the last 6 years I have been competing in snowboarding across the country. There are many different types of competition that are usually split up into to main catagories, Freestyle and Alpine. Competition became a way for me to see how I compare to other athletes and push me to improve my skills and work towards being a better rider.

Freestyle snowboarding consist of many different manmade snow features, as well as things like hand rails similar to what you would see next to a set of stairs. As you hit these features, there are many different tricks you can do ranging from spins, flips, and grabs. In competition, you are judged on how well you execute these tricks, and scored out of 100 points.

I also compete in Alpine disicplines, which related to racing either others of against the clock. Similar to in skiing, snowboarding has giant slalom races as well as another format called boardercross. In boardercross you race against 4 other competitiors around turns, over jumps, and around gates. Two years ago I got a chance to go to colliegte nationals where I placed 11th place in the nation in boardercross.