There has been some controversy about the current fashion trend in Snowboarding at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. Snowboarding gear has always known to be very baggy in the sport’s short 30-year existence, but as the competition gets larger, are athletes breaking the fashion code to get the edge on their opponents?
The Boarder Code
There is a code for the Olympic Snowboarders not to wear the full on spandex suit that all of the snowboarders wear during the Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom event which is scheduled to start on February 26th at the Winter Olympic Games. In the Snowboard Half Pipe and the Snowboard Cross events, the athletes all choose to wear normal fashionable gear that is obviously not as aerodynamic as the spandex.
4th Place Compaint
US Olympic Snowboarder Nate Holland criticized the Canadian Snowboarding Team for wearing gear that was too tight and out of the fashion quota, giving them more aerodynamic advantage over the other racers. Nate finished 4th place in the Snowboard Cross event, an event where 4 boarders race around a track for the best time, but it’s not that easy to tell who was wearing gear that was too tight, because nobody was wearing anything baggy.
Hammer This
In the 90s, when MC Hammer was one of the most popular stars in American Pop Culture, snowboarding was making its mark as a legitimate sport on the mountain. At that time, everyone was wearing baggy jeans and puffy jackets so it was only logical that snowboarding would copy those trends.
Skinny Is In
Today, the most popular jeans in the streets are skinny jeans and baggy clothes are on their way out of the current fashion trends. So it’s very likely that athletic wear will follow this trend too. When Michael Jordan changed from wearing his tight red shorts in the 80s to loose baggy ones in the 90s, no one argued that he was getting an advantage or a disadvantage over anyone. Everyone else just started wearing the same baggy shorts.
Monkey See, Monkey Do
So get used to seeing more and more snowboarders wearing tighter fitting jackets and pants. If the Olympian Snowboarders are wearing them because that’s the difference between pulling off a 1080 over a 720, then kids at the mountain are going to want that edge too!
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