Halfpipe Snowboarding Rules

Snowboarding has always been an adventure among most of those loving this game, which has become popular as a sport. With snowboarding keeping pace as a winter board sport, its extreme challenge and adventure has gone far beyond local and national competitions.

It started off in the 1960s' and today is recognized as a complete sport in the Olympics. This popular winter sport has emerged with an addition, that gives the athlete a chance to display his skills with the snowboard, yes, we are talking about the surface and the base for snowboarding, that is called halfpipe.

Halfpipe is a long cylinder, that is cut in half lengthwise. Surfaced with adequate snow, this becomes the platform to perform snowboarding and display skills and tricks.

The rider will use the snowboard and the halfpipe to display tricks up to a height of 20 feet from the ramp. He has to skate from end to end of the halfpipe and perform acrobatic stunts, all with maintaining a perfect balance on the snowboard. There are many interesting snowboarding tips that can add to the adventure.

Sounds fun right! Now, to enjoy this sport even better and let's say to enjoy a fair game, certain rules and guidelines must be adhered to. It does sound a bit stern but, these are simple halfpipe snowboarding rules, that can be easily followed. Read on as we gear up with facts and rules for a thrilling winter sport!

Let us start with some basics like that of the snowboard and the halfpipe. This type of snowboarding is different from regular snowboarding. The equipment required will be more flexible, like the boots, that must be flexible for the twists and turns in the tricks. The board should also be wide and flexible for adequate balance.

Now talking about the halfpipe, the dimensions will be as follows: length - 100 to 150 meters, width - 15 to 19 meters, height - 4 to 6 meters. The curvature of the angle of slope of the halfpipe will be around 16-17º, width of the deck (the horizontal flat space on the top of the wall) will be 6 - 7 meters.

Now for the rules, let us start with equipment. As mentioned above, boots and skateboards must be flexible and suitable for this adventurous sport. Some other important rules are:

✥ A helmet is a must during this sport even as an activity and in competitions. This will save from any accidents with high falls. The helmet should be a specially designed protective headgear, with quality internal padding.

✥ Only when one rider has finished and is exiting the pipe, should the next one enter. Any hand gesture or any other signal can be made to alert your entry in the halfpipe.

✥ As for the game, it is divided in three rounds. The first one being the qualifier round, that allots every rider with 2 runs to display their skills. With judging each rider, the panel of judges filter the best among the participants for the semi-final round and further for the final round.

✥ The scoring and judging of halfpipe snowboarding is unlike many sports. There are 7 judges that assess the sport. This is not based on time or the exact level of difficulty. The assessment of is completely based on certain aspects that determine a specific criteria.

The most common ones are

• Execution - this includes all the tactics that are performed, the flips and rotations near the lip of the pipe and aerials, etc.

• Difficulty - that includes the tricks performed and their level of complexity, the twist and flips with grabs or without grabs, etc.

• Amplitude - this makes a relatively simple criteria. It emphasizes on the height of the tactics at the lip and additional scores for maneuvers above the lip of the halfpipe.

• Overall performance - this compiles the act and is defined with the overall impression of the tactics and presentation, that includes the risks, use of space and also the tricks performed.

These were the basic set of rules for halfpipe snowboarders. Other points to remember can be professionalism and ethical behavior.

With bigger platform of events like the winter sports competitions, X games and the Olympics, the rules will be more defined and critical with deductions and other guidelines for this sport. If you are in the fervor of this sport this winter, make sure you dive with an ethical display of halfpipe snowboarding!