page_title: Snowboarding
section_title: Alpine snowboarding
hierarchical_section_title: Snowboarding / Styles / Alpine snowboarding
caption_attribution_description: English: Snowboarder in Tannheim, Austria. Français&#160;: Un snowboardeur. Photo prise à Tannheim, en Autriche.
context_page_description: Snowboarding is a recreational activity and Winter Olympic and Paralympic sport that involves descending a snow-covered slope while standing on a snowboard attached to a rider's feet.
  The development of snowboarding was inspired by skateboarding, sledding, surfing and skiing. It was developed in the United States in the 1960s, became a Winter Olympic Sport at Nagano in 1998 and eventually was featured in the Winter Paralympics at Sochi in 2014. Its popularity in the United States peaked in 2007 and has been in a decline since.
context_section_description: Alpine snowboarding is a discipline within the sport of snowboarding. It is practiced on groomed pistes. It has been an Olympic event since 1998.
  Sometimes called freecarving or hardbooting(due to the equipment used), this discipline usually takes place on hard packed snow or groomed runs(although it can be practiced in any and all conditions) and focuses on carving linked turns, much like surfing or longboarding, and is seen as superior to other disciplines in many Europeans countries. Little or no jumping takes place in this discipline. Alpine Snowboarding consists of a small portion of the general snowboard population, that has a well connected social community and its own specific board manufacturers, most situated in Europe. Alpine Snowboard equipment includes a ski-like hardshell boot and plate binding system with a true directional snowboard that is stiffer and narrower to manage linking turns with greater forces and speed. Shaped skis can thank these "freecarve" snowboards for the cutting-edge technology leading to their creation. A skilled alpine snowboarder can link numerous turns into a run placing their body very close to the ground each turn, similar to a motocross turn or waterski carve. Depending on factors including stiffness, turning radius and personality this can be done slowly or fast.
  Carvers make perfect half-circles out of each turn, changing edges when the snowboard is perpendicular to the fall line and starting every turn on the downhill edge. Carving on a snowboard is like riding a roller coaster, because the board will lock into a turn radius and provide what feels like multiple Gs of acceleration.
  Alpine snowboarding shares more visual similarities with skiing equipment than it does with snowboarding equipment. Compared to freestyle snowboarding gear:
  boards are narrower, longer, and stiffer to improve carving performance
  boots are made from a hard plastic shell
  bindings have a bail or step-in design and are sometimes placed on suspension plates to provide a layer of isolation between an alpine snowboarder and the board, to decrease the level of vibrations felt by the rider, creating a better overall experience when carving, and to give extra weight to the board among other uses.
caption: Snowboarder in Tannheim, Tyrol, Austria
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