Alternative Sports

▪ 1998

Introduction

by Brett Forrest

      In the 1990s so-called alternative sports made inroads into the imagination and recreation time of people around the world—but especially in the United States. Figures from the National Sporting Goods Association showed a decline in participation by Americans in traditional sports, including football and baseball, in favour of such new sports as in-line skating and snowboarding. Even "extreme" sports, the playground of adrenaline junkies, high-speed addicts, and alterna-athletes, were becoming more mainstream in 1997 than ever before.

      Thanks in large part to the annual winter and summer ESPN X Games, which drew 219,900 spectators, such relatively new sports as wakeboarding, aggressive in-line skating, and street luge continued to experience a meteoric rise in participation and exposure that served to further legitimize them. By comparison with these domains of dyed hair, tattoos, and body piercings, sports such as mountain biking and beach volleyball seemed rather establishmentarian; indeed, both had become official Olympic events in 1996. In general, alternative sports could be divided into three groups: those that had already moved from the fringe into the mainstream, those that were fast approaching mainstream status, and those still very much on the fringe.

Mainstream.

      Paola Pezzo of Italy dominated the women's side of the mountain biking World Cup in 1997, winning 8 of the tour's 10 cross-country events. Missy Giove of the U.S. did likewise in downhill, capturing her second consecutive World Cup title, but she encountered technical problems at the world championships, which allowed Anne-Caroline Chausson of France to take first place. On the men's side, Corrado Herin of Italy won his first downhill World Cup title, and Chausson's teammate Nicolas Vouilloz captured his sixth consecutive downhill world championship.

      The Brazilian team of Sandra Pires and Jackie Silva won the women's beach volleyball world championship in September, edging out the American team of Holly McPeak and Lisa Arce, who had won 7 of 12 events on the professional tour. It was a Brazilian show on the men's side as well, with Jose Loiola reaching three major milestones: he became the first non-American player to reach the top ranking on the men's tour; he achieved the $1 million mark in career earnings; and he won the illustrious King of the Beach title.

      Canada edged the U.S. for the overall men's freestyle skiing World Cup team title, with Jean-Luc Brassard leading the way. American Olympic moguls champion Donna Weinbrecht had an average season, but aerialist Eric Bergoust provided inspiration for the American team, recovering from a crash that shattered his collarbone in six places to win a silver medal at the world championships in Nagano, Japan. Meanwhile, freestyle's third discipline, acrobatic, continued to struggle for popularity.

Close to Mainstream.

      In 1997 it was a huge year for snowboarding for two reasons. World-class boarders throughout the world were prepping for the first Olympic competition in 1998, and official figures in midyear proclaimed the sport as the fastest-growing one in the U.S. Top Americans Mike Jacoby and Sondra Van Ert won medals at the world championships, and the sport continued to branch out into four disciplines: downhill, slalom, halfpipe, and boardercross. The Snowboard Retailers Association reported that 1.5 million new snowboarders had emerged since the inaugural X Games.

      An enormously popular sport in the early-to-mid-1980s, skateboarding, thanks in large part to television exposure on MTV and ESPN, had a breakout year professionally in 1997. Chriss Finn and Andy MacDonald won the street and halfpipe vert titles, respectively, on the World Cup tour. Tony Hawk, at 29 an elder statesman in the sport, drew crowds wherever he skated, and his gold-medal vert performance at the X Games was widely considered perhaps the best run in competition history. Cara-Beth Burnside took the vert title at the all-women Vans Skate Jam, the first competition of its kind.

      From 1990 to 1995 the explosive growth of jet skis—powered personal watercraft—was accompanied by at least a fourfold increase in injuries, according to a report released in 1997. Several high-profile recreational fatalities underlined the report's findings, casting a shadow on the popular sport. Competition, however, continued unfazed, highlighted by Frenchwoman Karine Paturel's women's world title. Jeff Jacobs and Tera Crimson won American championships, and 11 countries participated in the Asia Pacific Jet Racing King's Cup in Bangkok.

      One of the U.S.'s fastest-growing sports, in-line hockey, experienced a roller-coaster year. Popularity continued to soar as new rinks sprang up nationwide, with many in warm-weather areas such as Arizona and Nevada, where ice hockey (the sport's progenitor) was anything but a native game. The flagship professional league, Roller Hockey International, fought rumours throughout the year that owing to financial difficulties this, its fifth season, would be its last. The talk did not shake the Anaheim Bullfrogs, who, behind the strong goaltending of David Goverde, won the Murphy Cup, the team's second national title in five years.

Still on the Fringe.

      Darin Shapiro, the man who practically invented wakeboarding, made a triumphant return after having missed the entire 1996 season because of an ankle injury. He won the professional wakeboard series but was strongly challenged by the duo of Jeremy Kovak and 16-year-old phenomenon Parks Bonifay. Shapiro needed to win the final stop on the tour to win his fifth overall pro series title, and he came through, edging Kovak by just 64 points. Kovak captured titles at the X Games and wakeboard world championships, and Bonifay took the American championships and finished second at the world meet. The sport's total participation swelled to some 1,250,000.

      The third year of the Aggressive Skaters Association was the best ever; the professional tour averaged 25,000 spectators over 12 events. The pro tour was augmented by the X Games and MTV's Ultimate Inline Challenge, which gave the sport more publicity than ever before. Taig Khris of France won the men's vert, and Australian Dion Antony took the street title on the overall tour. On the women's side, American Katie Brown won the women's vert title, and Switzerland's Salima Sanga won the street crown.

      Organizers for skateboarding-inspired street luge—in which competitors can reach wheel-melting speeds of up to 113 km/h (70 mph), racing down pavement just 5 cm (2 in) above the ground while lying atop 2.4-m (8-ft)-long metal boards—spent the year trying to professionalize the sport and streamline its rules, which thus would make it more attractive to corporate sponsorship. This made-for-TV sport gained increased attention at the X Games, where Michael ("Biker") Sherlock, wearing the standard full leather motorcycle suit and crash helmet, took two gold medals and one silver. Chris Ponseti won the other gold.

Brett Forrest is a reporter for the magazine Men's Journal.

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