The origins of snowboarding go back to Christmas Day 1965 when an engineer named Sherman Poppen strapped two skis together to give his daughters something to do. He called it a “snurfer” and started selling them the next year.

Jake Burton came along, refined the toy and helped turn snowboarding into a mass-market sport. Along the way superstars like Shaun White and Chloe Kim redefined what could be done in the air and the sport is always reinventing itself in terms of tricks. What to expect as the Winter Olympics arrive.

How it works

There are three snowboarding events in what's called the park ( halfpipe, slopestyle and big air) and two more that involve racing (snowboardcross and parallel giant slalom). The park contests are the core of the sport. They are judged events that include qualifying and finals where riders are scored on the complexity of the tricks and how high they fly. Snowboardcross is a rugged form of four-wide racing down a winding course and PGS is the closest this sport has to Alpine skiing.