Skiing makes solid comeback

PORTLAND – Skiing is in again.

No longer struggling for clout, skiers are emerging from snowboarding’s shadow. Marketers are lavishing top skiers with the same kind of sponsorships that big-name boarders command.

New events like The Ski Tour are further pushing skiing back to the mainstream.

Here’s the irony: Skiing has regained lost ground, in part, by becoming more like snowboarding. Leading the resurgence in skiing are free riders who, like their boarding brethren, focus on acrobatic jumps, twists and tricks, not just speeding down the hill. To accommodate the new wave of snow sport daredevils, ski-area operators are offering freestyle instruction and high schools are starting up freestyle ski teams.

“Skiing is in a supercool position,” said Tigard High School graduate Sammy Carlson. At 18, Carlson won a silver medal in slopestyle skiing at the last Winter X Games.

For some time, it seemed as if skiers were a dying breed. The number of snowboarders hitting the slopes since 1990 grew nearly every year, according to data from the National Ski & Snowboard Retailers Association. At the same time, the number of skiers was shrinking. By 2004, snowboarders had overtaken skiers at U.S. resorts. But slopes have drawn more skiers than boarders since then.

The early Winter X Games – extreme-sports competitions first held 12 years ago – were dominated by snowboarding events. At the time, the skiing world was more focused on downhill racing, said Tim Reed, X Games senior director of sports and competition.

Skiers watched as snowboarders staked claim to what’s cool on the slopes. Resorts that once banned boarders began welcoming them with groomed halfpipes and parks with rails, boxes and jumps to perform tricks. Snowboarding turned into an Olympic sport. Red-headed shredder Shaun White, “The Flying Tomato,” became a household name.

Pro freestyle skier Eric Pollard of Welches, Ore., said he started out racing but became intrigued by the acrobatic aerial tricks he saw his snowboard buddies trying.

“Going forward, turning, jumping off of little things, not really spinning, occasionally a back flip or a 360, that was kind of the limit of skiing,” he said.

That’s because his racing skis were only designed to go in one direction: forward. Then Pollard heard about some other teenagers in the area who had created a makeshift method of turning racing skis into doubled ended twin-tips. With a tip on each end, skiers could land both forward and backward.

“Once those skis came around, everyone figured out how to utilize them, and immediately after that, people realized it was a reputable thing,” said Pollard.

With the new technology, skiers were soon performing the same types of high-flying tricks as snowboarders.

At the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo., there are just as many events for skiers as snowboarders.