During this time Burton had on major competitor, Tom Sims. Sims borrowed from skateboarding technology to create his own version of snowboard. Sims snowboards came from an idea he had in shop class when to glued carpet to top of a piece of wood and aluminum sheeting to bottom of board.

In order to showcase their innovations, Burton and Sims held first ever snowboarding competition in Vermont in 1982. This competition was more of a survival contest as runs where icy kamikaze runs. This event helped to launch magazine Absolutely Radical that became International Snowboarding Magazine.

Snowboarding technology continued to improve, as did fame of its competitions. The competitions became so popular that International Snowboarding Federation was formed to help judge competitions. In 1998 snowboarding made its grand entrance into world of Olympics at Nagano, Japan.

This too was a controversial time. The IOC dismissed ISF and instead had Federation Internationale de Ski over see events. While this policy is still in effect to this day, tensions are easing between two factions and things are running much smoother.

Of course no history of snowboarding would be complete with out mentioning Rebagliati in 1998 Olympics. Rebagliati, a Canadian from Whistler BC, won gold medal that year but later tested positive for trace amounts of marijuana and was stripped of his gold medal. Rebagliati appealed ruling and won since marijuana is a controlled substance, not a banned substance and is not a performance-enhancing drug. This event helped to decriminalize marijuana in Canada and caused many people to rethink their position on marijuana. "Smoke a fatty for Rebagliati" was a common phrase to show support for Rebagliati and show support for reforming of Canadian laws.

Snowboarding has come a long way in 70 odd years. Snowboarding started as a crazy idea that only fools would try and has become an accepted Olympic event due to its popularity. Arguably, snowboarding is fastest growing sport and industry. Few other innovations have caught on this fast or have become an Olympic sport so soon.

Any interesting thing to note is that alpine snowboarding has seemed to have died off and been reborn again. Alpine board manufactures took design of alpine board to a point that it was amazingly perfect at high speeds but no longer usable for average person. One main way of improving snowboard efficiency was to reduce its width to as little as 16 cm in center of snowboard. This did allow for even greater speeds but caused snowboard to become unstable at low speed and forced rider to remain in a position that was uncomfortable to ride in for any length of time.

These innovations seemed to kill industry as did skiing manufactures that started to implement aggressive edge technology into their products. Most people began to shy away from alpine snowboarding and instead seek out freestyle snowboarding. However this has changed recently with rebirth of alpine snowboarding. Once again people are becoming interested in challenge and excitement that comes from ripping down a hill at high speeds and pulling turns that exert more g-forces on body than most cars do. Manufacturers have learned their lessons and seem to be much more reasonable and consumer oriented in their snowboard designs than before.

If you are a snowboarder who enjoys speed and tight cornering then alpine snowboarding is thing for you. Alpine snowboards are designed to be ridden hard and fast on machine groomed or packed runs. Their design allows you to move in ways no other snowboarder and possibly skier can ever hope to. Also, alpine snowboarding is easier to learn than alpine skiing. If you are looking for fast paced action filled fun like nothing else than you are destined for alpine snowboarding. Have fun, keep your speeds up and enjoy g-forces of mind blowing cornering.