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Snowboarding Youth Culture and the Winter Olympics: Co-Evolution in an American-Driven Show

2020; Routledge; Volume: 37; Issue: 13 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09523367.2020.1828361

1743-9035

Anne Barjolin-Smith,

Sports, Gender, and Society

Snowboarding, as an American sport experience based on fun, risk-taking, creativity, and freedom, entered the Winter Olympics as a youth show à l’américaine through freestyle disciplines. The concept of geo-sportivity explains the link between the United States and snowboarding and shows that, despite its Olympic inclusion, snowboarding’s ethos has remained fundamentally American in terms of leadership, representation, evolution, and commodification. Inspired by the X Games, the Winter Olympics have provided a new platform for the American sport experience. According to pioneer skateboarder Tony Hawk, snowboarding introduced a youthful energy and a youthful viewership to the Olympics. On the global stage, snowboarding has become a form of American youth culture without borders, which brings about the question of sports as soft power resources. The inclusion of snowboarding as an American-made lifestyle sport, a youth culture, and a performance has had an impact on the Winter Olympics and, ultimately, on the Summer Olympics.