Snowboarding's First Olympic Venue: Nagano 1998
By Jason Dow

By some estimates the country is already sucking up more than a third of the total snowboard sales. It has about 200 more ski areas than the United States, and with only 30 percent of those currently open to snowboarding, it's obvious there is a tremendous potential for growth.

The 1998 Olympic games are scheduled for 16 days from February 7-22, 1998, in Nagano, Japan. Over 3,000 athletes and officials will participate in 68 events in seven sports. The programs include: Skiing, Skating, Ice Hockey, Biathlon, Bobsled, Luge, and Curling. In the Skiing category, we have Alpine, x-country, Nordic, Freestyle, and of course, Snowboarding. Snowboarders will compete in Giant Slalom and Halfpipe.

Nagano is located about 5 hours north-west from Tokyo in the Japanese Alps. Though it is a fairly large city, only skating and ice hockey will take place there. Unfortunately, Japan is an island with many people and the living is small and crowded. The drive to the surrounding ski areas where the events will take place are on narrow roads through small villages. We actually got stuck for an hour in a convoy of tourist busses that crammed together one after the other like giant lobsters in a trap.

The town where the snowboarding events take place is called Yamanouchi (Shigakogen). It will be interesting to see how they will manage with thousands of people crowding the roads and cramming into minimal space and parking. They say they plan to build roads/parking, but I don't see how or where. Plus, nothing is really started. They have begun construction on some new highways and a super bullet train from Nagano, but it seems a bit rushed. After all, nearly everything in Park City for 2002 is already built.

The halfpipe event will take place at a newly built site called the "Shigakogen Kambayashi Snowboard Park". It is located about an hour to the North West of Nagano and includes two lifts, and a halfpipe. The GS event will take place 50 minutes from Kambayashi at the Shigakogen Yakebitaiyama Mountain.

The site of the Halfpipe is on a perfect 18 degree inclination and is 15 meters wide and 110 meters long. The pipe is dug into the ground and each side is leveled to hold giant bleachers. We rode the pipe and were pretty satisfied with its specifications. It will be interesting to see how perfect they can make it for the Olympics.

The Giant Slalom course is a good length, has a 250 meter vertical drop, and sets at approximately 32 gates. It has some good rolls, but gets a little narrow in spots. Some riders think it might be too steep, but then again, I heard others, like Mike Jacoby say it's good. The training course on a nearby run actually seems better. Like Park City, the resort doesn't allow snowboarding. They say they won't even allow it after the Olympics. That, of course, is all kind of lame move and makes snowboarding look stupid. Hopefully, some changes will be made in the future.

The plus side of the snowboard site is the traditional culture, and friendly small town atmosphere. Most of the towns are 400 years old and have really cool temples and points of interests to visit. One Buddhist Temple in Nagano is 1400 years old.

In addition, the area is famous for its hot springs which cascade down the mountains in rivers, streams and waterfalls. There are many spas and traditional Japanese baths. The coolest, however, are the troops of wild monkeys who live in the area and who hang out in the hot springs. Just a 20 minute walk into the forest brings you to the pools where hundreds of monkeys run around playing and just kickin' it in the snow. Occasionally they come into town to steal food.

When we first arrived, we had no idea that the monkeys lived there, and we freaked out when we saw one sitting on a wall making faces at us. Then a crazed Japanese shopkeeper came running out and chased it with a broom. Distracted, she didn't see a second monkey who appeared and stole some bananas from the shop. It was pretty damn funny. Ross Powers, a member of the US Team, says they feed the monkeys every morning from their hotel room windows. The monkeys even come inside and steal food when no one's looking.

It will be interesting to see what the city and Japan as a country do to prepare for the Olympics in the next two years. Next year we will return and check it out again and give you an update on the progress being made for the snowboarding dive into Olympic history.

Jason Dow ([email protected]), a staff writer for SOL, is a FIS halfpipe judge who hopes to make it back to Nagano for the 1998 Olympics--as a judge.