Hot celebrity snowboard new: Aussie disco diva Kylie Minogue and male model Andres Velencoso Segura spent last week in Chamonix according to reports on Thaindian.com.
Minogue, 40, and Segura, who is ten years her junior, were seen snowboarding and partying together for a week in Chamonix, with locals saying that the two looked like loved-up teenagers. . . .Andres had never been snowboarding before but Kylie loves it, the Sun quoted a source as saying.
She did exactly what she should have done: she hired an instructor and put Segura in a lesson while she tore it up on her own.
It’s been a long time coming but it looks like ESPN has finally begun to treat action sports as a part of their sporting news mix and not just some kind of fringe “X” thing out on a site by itself. Starting today EXPN is gone and in its place is ESPN Action Sports at http://espn.go.com/action/.
The new, nicely uncluttered subsection of the ESPN.com site is reportedly much more Google friendly and will be bringing “shitloads of traffic, bro.” It was supposed to have its own promo on the homepage of ESPN.com but we couldn’t find any and the new section doesn’t currently have an RSS feed (it should be up by the end of the week according to inside sources). A link to the Action Sports page is, however, listed under the ALL SPORTS menu in the main navigation of the ESPN site (three spots from the bottom of the list behind Rugby and just ahead of “bassmaster.”) Apparently the nav is ranked by importance to the average ESPN.com visitor.
While we don’t exactly consider “rally” an action sport, the new index does give each of the sports their own sub-sub homepage which will technically allow visitors to deep link straight to the content they’re interested in. Still, this “segregated part of the whole sports world” idea does result in a page with a couple snowboard stories right next to a big promo for the Gridiron Playoff Challenge.
The winter of 1988-89 was the first full season that Vail allowed snowboarders to ride the mountain. For those old enough to remember the days of not being able to ride anywhere, this means one thing: you’re old. And so is Ray Sforzo. He was there 20 years ago and he’s still there today:
“It seems to be working out pretty well,” said Sforzo, who founded Vail’s snowboard school and directed it for 15 years. “There’s less and less negative interface. Instead of the idiot snowboarder cut me off, now it’s just the idiot cut me off. . . .“Obviously it’s more mainstream,” Sforzo said. “It’s a pretty substantial part of our ski school revenue. A lot of kids are lured to snowboarding.”
Olympic gold medalist Hannah Teter is hoping to raise $100,000 for an African village see visited on a family trip last summer, according to a story on Cleveland.com.
Hannah has set the goal of raising $100,000 for Kirindon in 2009, an amount that goes a lot further in Africa than it would in America in part because everything — labor, raw materials — is cheaper. Some of the money comes from selling syrup and some from donations made via her Web site, hannahsgold.com. . . . I just wanted to snowboard for a higher cause,” she said. “The competition can get repetitive and a little bit old, especially when you’ve been doing it for seven years. I kinda wanted a new ambition, to really want to do well all the time and do it for a reason.”
As a reminder Hannah rides with photos of children from the village. Sing along. . . We are the world. . .and next time you see Hannah ask her if you can see the Africans in her pocket.
To keep snowboarders and skiers from ducking ropes in to dangerous terrain, Whistler-Blackcomb has posted guards to stand watch over popular out-of-bounds spots, according to a story on Canada.com.
The areas where the deadly slides occurred had earlier been marked out-of-bounds and “not recommended” for use as a result of avalanche warnings based on the snow conditions. Those runs are now marked “closed” and guards are turning people away, said Whistler Blackcomb official Doug Forseth. . . . He said the resort is taking a “zero tolerance” attitude toward anyone caught sneaking into the closed areas, and employees will seize season’s passes. . . . “This is very serious. We don’t want to pull them out or call their families, or put our people in danger,” Forseth said.
With three avalanches and two deaths in two days, it’s probably a good idea.
The engineers are at it again. This time with a “No Snowboard” designed by John Dingley.
The rider leans in either direction to get the thing going (as demonstrated in motion below) and the slight curvature of the tire allows for turning just like you would with a normal skateboard. Right now maximum speed is a somewhat pedestrian 7 mph, but Dingley estimates that a Segway-matching 12 mph is possible with better gearing.
Jesse Huffman writes up another great snowboarding story for The New York Times. This one, on who snowboard companies are jumping on the “green manufacturing” movement.
More snowboard makers than ever, from grass-roots innovators like Mervin in Sequim, Wash., to multinational companies like Burton, are offering green or eco-friendly boards this ski season. And the trend is just beginning. Boards made with sustainable materials account for just 2 percent of the $140 million board market, according to Snowsports Industries America, a trade group.
Those quoted include: Burton’s Todd King, Salomon’s Alex Warburton, Arbor’s Bob Carlson, K2’s Doug Sanders, Mike Basich and Mervin’s Pete Saari (pictured right). Cleaner is better and if it help sells, great.
This new non-Shaun snowboard game for the Wii looks a lot like an old snowmobile game we used to play called Sled Storm, but that was 10 years ago. . . now it’s an Oakley-sponsored snowboardcross racing game called Snowboard Riot. Wait, was that Gretchen Bleiler who just rode by.
The new year got off to a deadly start at Whistler Mountain as 26-year-old snowboarder Aaron Fauchon died in an avalanche today at about 3 PM while reportedly riding in the Secret Chutes, near the Symphony Bowl, according to a stories in the Vancouver Sun and The Province.
The man, 26, who was not a resident of B.C., had been boarding by himself out of bounds when he was buried in an avalanche. . . The victims’ names haven’t been released pending notification of next of kin. . . . The victims are the third and fourth skiers or snowboarders to perish at the resort in ten days, and the ninth person this week to die in an avalanche in the province.
This is turning into a pretty bad season and we’re only three weeks in.
Snowboarder James William Martin, 21, spent three nights out in the snow near British Columbia’s Mount Seymour before finally being rescued by helicopter at 2:30 PM on December 31, 2008, according to a story from UPI.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said searchers discovered James William Martin about 2:30 p.m. in an area of Mount Seymour known as Suicide Creek and used a basket dropped from a helicopter to airlift him out, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported. . . Martin only slept for two hours during his three-day ordeal, said his cousin, Mitchell Powell, in an email to the Vancouver Sun. . . When two searchers approached him, he was coherent and managed to say: “I’m cold,” according to Powell. . . . He’s going to VGH because it looks like he’s got some pretty serious frostbite on his hands,” said search manager George Zilahi in an interview with the Vancouver Sun.
Martin has the rescue crew to thank for his survival. Crews reported that his tracks were leading all over the place. One more reason not to ride alone in an unfamiliar area.
