Why use boardercross participents mostly softboots?

[SITO]

Ummmm, to many post on different forums speaking about brands and
boards.....

But..... what about the racers?

Yamaha, never won any race in the last years, then came Valentino and actually Yamaha is worldchampionship,
And what about Ducati?, only Stoner can drive the bike anybody can do podium on any Ducati only Stoner can do that ....

So.....Is the tool or is the hands??

I think that any well built custom board/brand on the feet of a worldchampion or a good racer can win any race .....

[WinterGold]

You are 100% correct. I always say that the equipment is only about 5% of the overall performance
But that isn´t really the point here ...
The boards in the WC are all on a very high level (only minor differences) ... and that was my point ... there is no more domination.

[chucky]

Schneewurm just meant that the idea of the original Boardercoss (to bring together hardbooters and softbooters). . .

Sure people raced boardercross on both hardboots and softboots, but that wasn't "the idea" of the original boardercoss, it was merely a byproduct. There were still hardbooters racing in the first Olympic "Snowboard Cross".

Boardercross is [now] a seperate discipline with special equipment and professionals who concentrate on this discipline.

The sport has evolved, that's all, as has the equipment - but it's still boardercross. You can still race boardercross on a standard freeride setup.

He doesn´t seem to like the new form as much as the old one

I agree that FIS boardercross courses are crap compared to pretty much all other courses. I think the starts especially are bloody ridiculous!

Kessler dominating?

Kessler's claim, not mine. Anyway, I only used it to highlight the fact that the board model is called "boardercross", not "snowboard cross".

[chucky]

The term boardercross is trademarked/registered in some countries (and not by FIS but by someone else) and therefore the new name is snowboardcross.

I don't think so. Yes, the name was trademarked by Peak Productions Inc. (who Steven Rechtschaffner, the "inventor" of boardercross worked with) - however I'm not aware of the FIS being refused usage of it (or ANYONE else for that matter). The FIS initially weren't interested in getting involved in boardercross, but eventually warmed to the idea - then they simply needed a name that worked for an international Olympic audience, and boardercross wasn't it.

Snowboard Cross is not "the new name" - it's simply the FIS's name. Seth Westcott still calls it boardercross, as does Lindsey Jacobellis - in fact I don't know of a single competitor (for whom English is their native language) who doesn't call it boardercross. Of course they all occasionally call it snowboard cross when they're required to, but that's out of obligation, not willing endorsement.

A buddy of mine has commentated both Olympic boardercross comps for national Australian TV (and the last three Olympic pipe comps), and he was referring to it as boardercross in Torino until he was told in no uncertain terms to ONLY refer to it as snowboard cross in an official capacity. Word gets around though, and the main host of Australia's Olympic broadcast started referring to it as boardercross when introducing coverage earlier this week. Even the graphics department got involved, and changed the graphic from snowboard cross to boardercross - but with the FIS's evil stranglehold on the sport, it wasn't surprising that it was changed back once the legal department found out.

[WinterGold]

chucky, I was trying to explain Schneewurm´s thinking ... maybe I shouldn´t have , but bringing the world of hardbooters and softbooters together was definitely an aspect when the first drafts of this discipline were made ... I have old snowboard mags articles about that ... and back then they were not sure, which setup would be advantageous ... so it was a discipline for both styles!

"You can still race boardercross on a standard freeride setup."

Yes and you can still use hardboots, but hardly anyone does anymore ... just look at the Olympics ... as the discipline got older and evolved, the equipment also specialized ... that´s only normal ...

Whether you call it Snowboard Cross or Boardercross is not really that important ...

[chucky]

The thing is WinterGold, it IS important "whether you call it Snowboard Cross or Boardercross" - because "Boardercross" is all about snowboarding culture and its history, and "Snowboard Cross" reflects the dismissive attitude (bordering on contempt) many people in the FIS have for the sport of snowboarding. I don't think it's acceptable for any real snowboarder to willingly bend over and take it from the FIS.

[WinterGold]

Ok, I see your point and back in the days of ISF vs. FIS you can imagine on which side I was ...

[chucky]

As the person who has probably taken the biggest stand ever against the FIS/IOC (boycotting the Olympics even though he was a dead cert for gold), this is Terje Haakonsen's recent take on the subject (as posted on Twitter):

[frunobulax]

IMO snowboard cross is a good example for the FIS and the Olympics going in the wrong direction with their competition rules.

Not because hardboots aren't used there anymore.. it' normal for a sport discipline to develop special equipment, and if a racer can be just slightly quicker with softies and special BX boards it is understandable that he uses them for competition.

But I think despite the fact that the races at the Olympics and sometimes also in the worldcup are highly spectacular and thrilling, BX moves further and further away from snowboarding as a mass sport, and gets highly artificial.

In the beginning BX seemed to be an effort to combine every aspect of real life snowboarding - mixed-terrain freeriding as well as carving (alpine) and jumps (freestyle) - and to bring snowboarders from every part of the snowboarding world together in a highly spectacular man-to-man contest.

Nowadays BX is a highly specialized sport that can be done only in the few bx courses in bigger ski resorts. These courses are more often than not in bad shape most of the winter. Courses like the Olympic course simply don't exist in the normal world (which is a good thing on the other hand, given the amount of injuries they would produce among normal snowboarders).
There is no more carving (due to the banked turns), and the resemblance to all-terrain snowboarding is theoretical at maximum. You won't even see freestylers on BX courses anymore.
It's the most dangerous snowboarding discipline as I was told, and in a 4-competitors-race you can control the risk only very limitedly.

Don't get me wrong - I admire most of the BX racers for their abilities and their guts. I get easily freaked when going through a BX course, esp. on highspeed rollers.
But IMO it's the same problem like with luge and bobsleigh races. Tobogganing on groomed and iced roads is a fun sport open to nearly everyone. Competition luging on roads is very interesting to watch, and everyone can compare the technique of the pros to his own poor abilities.
But the FIBT concentrates on luge and bobsleigh competitions in artificial icetubes, only a handful of which exist all over the world. Races in an icetube are spectacular and fast, but what the racers really do in these icetubes is completely unintelligible to the public.
I've been to the icetube in Königssee last year, and was sent down there on a luge without any advice. The reason is: advice is not necessary. You go through the tube like you're on a rollercoaster, with no possibility whatsoever to interfere. You just stay on the sled. It's fast and it's adrenaline-producing, but at the end highly artificial and there is no resemblance to real world luging at all.

If this is where snowboarding is going, my TV will stay switched off during the next Olympics.