Snowboard Competitions

Today, Snowboarders are such a ubiquitous sight on the slopes it's hard to imagine there was ever a time when they were universally banned, not to mention ridiculed as punks who wore too much fluoro. From these renegade roots Snowboard has progressed over the last 50 years into an exciting and popular discipline that captures both the interest and imagination of participants and spectators alike. This is especially true within the university student-athlete ranks.

At the beginning, Snowboard competitions were limited to the Giant Slalom and Parallel Giant Slalom disciplines. At the 1999 WU in Poprad-Tatry, Slovakia, Border Cross was included into the Universiade programme. Later on, this competition discipline was rechristened Snowboard Cross, the name it still goes by today.

The depth of today’s Snowboard competitions shows the progressive nature of sport and now counts the following as championship events: Parallel Giant Slalom, Half Pipe, Snowboard Cross, Big Air and Slope Style. The running of competitions is always supervised by the FISU Technical Chair for Snowboard and the FIS Technical Committee Chair, who leads all technical meetings concerned.

The women’s Big Air competition was included into the sports programme of the WU in 2009. At the Winter Universiade 2011 in Erzurum, a new Snowboard event, “Slopestyle”, was included into the sports programme. Unfortunately Slopestyle suffered from extremely strong wind conditions and was sensibly cancelled for safety reasons.

FISU's Snowboard History 

Snowboard is one of the youngest Universiade disciplines and entered the WU sports programme 17 years ago during the 17th Winter Universiade (1995) in Jaca, Spain. A demonstration sport at the time, Snowboard gave the Swiss and Americans a chance to distinguish themselves. In Jaca a total of 29 participants from 10 countries competed. Since then, Snowboard has become a compulsory discipline with an increasing number of participants.

Former Winter Universiade medallists include Daniela Meuli, who became the Olympic champion at the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games. Numerous other Olympians also compete at the Winter Universiade.

Previous Events

• 2019 - 29th Winter Universiade – Krasnoyarsk (RUS)
• 2017 - 28th Winter Universiade – Almaty (KAZ)
• 2015 - 27th Winter Universiade – Granada (ESP)
  
• 2013 - 26th Winter Universiade – Trentino (ITA)
  
• 2011 - 25th Winter Universiade – Erzurum (TUR)
• 2009 - 24th Winter Universiade – Harbin (CHN)
• 2007 - 23rd Winter Universiade – Torino (ITA)
• 2005 - 22nd Winter Universiade – Innsbruck (AUT)
• 2003 - 21st Winter Universiade – Tarvisio (ITA)
• 2001 - 20th Winter Universiade – Zakopane (POL)
• 1999 - 19th Winter Universiade – Poprad/Tatry (SVK)
• 1995 - 17th Winter Universiade – Jaca (ESP)