Wayne Wong | |
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Born | Vancouver, British Columbia | October 17, 1950
For the Hong Kong former tennis player, see Wayne Wong.
Wayne Wong (born October 17, 1950) is a Canadian pioneer of freestyle skiing, and an inductee into both the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame and the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. [1]
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Wong is considered one of the most influential skiers of the 20th century, according to both SKI and Powder magazines.[ citation needed ] He is the inventor of the famous "Wong Banger" and starred in countless skiing movies.
Wong is also the person credited with introducing future Tour de France champion Greg LeMond to the sport of cycling in 1975. [2]
Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games.
Freestyle skiing is a skiing discipline comprising aerials, moguls, cross, half-pipe, slopestyle and big air as part of the Winter Olympics. It can consist of a skier performing aerial flips and spins and can include skiers sliding rails and boxes on their skis. Known as "hot-dogging" in the early 1970s, it is also commonly referred to as freeskiing, jibbing, as well as many other names, around the world.
Lucile Wheeler is a former alpine ski racer from Canada. She was a double world champion in 1958, the first North American to win a world title in the downhill event.
Glen Plake is a US National Ski Hall of Fame skier. He grew up in Lake Tahoe, skiing Heavenly Valley. He is known for his appearances in ski films such as Greg Stump's The Blizzard of Aahhhs. Plake has been named a pioneer of extreme skiing in America by ESPN. Glen has been the host of the RSN program Reel Thrills.
Hilary Kirsten Lindh is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States. A specialist in the downhill event, she was a world champion and Olympic medalist.
Carrabassett Valley Academy (CVA) is a private ski and snowboard academy in Carrabassett Valley, Maine, at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain. Established in 1982, the school's alumni include Olympic competitors Bode Miller, Seth Wescott, Kirsten Clark, and Emily Cook, as well as Jeremy Jones, nine-time Snowboard Magazine Big Mountain Rider of the Year. Since 1982 CVA alumni have included 12 Olympians, winners of 92 US national titles, 11 X-Games competitors, 26 NCAA and USCSA All-Americans, 39 US national team members, and six world champions.
Sarah Jean Burke was a Canadian freestyle skier who was a pioneer of the superpipe event. She was a five-time Winter X Games gold medallist, and won the world championship in the halfpipe in 2005. She successfully lobbied the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to have the event added to the Olympic program for the 2014 Winter Olympics. She was considered a medal favourite in the event. Burke died following a training accident in Utah in 2012.
Armada is an American manufacturer of skis, poles, technical outerwear and skiing-related softgoods, based in Park City, Utah with a European office in Innsbruck, Austria. The company's products are sold in over forty countries worldwide through wholly owned subsidiaries and distributors.
A ski film is a motion picture with sequences of expedition, recreation, competition, or acrobatic exhibition on snow skis. These non-fiction action sport films capture the experience of an athletic outdoor snow sporting culture. Ski films typically present one or more techniques, locations, or skiers. Categories include the feature, documentary of competition or other event coverage, instruction or technique demonstration, retrospective history, travel guide showcasing a region, or a short subject. More than 200 such videos debuted in 2006. Notable examples are listed at the Ski and Snowboard Film Institute, or have received awards from the International Ski Film Festival, X-Dance Action Sports Film Festival, IF3 International Freeski Film Festival, Newschoolers magazine, Cold Smoke Winter Film, Powder magazine, or similar.
John Homer Caldwell is a retired American nordic skier who competed in the 1952 Winter Olympics, then became a cross-country ski coach and authority on cross-country skiing. He wrote a series of books that helped popularize and develop understanding of recreational cross-country skiing in the United States. Consequently, Caldwell has been called the "father" and "guru" of Nordic skiing in North America.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to skiing:
Greg Stump is an American champion skier, ski and snowboarding filmmaker, and music video director.
Chris Davenport is considered one of the world's most accomplished big-mountain skiers and mountaineers. A native of Aspen, Colorado, he has been called "one of North America's top 25 skiers by Skiing Magazine and is a "two-time extreme skiing world champion".
Half-pipe skiing is the sport of riding snow skis on a half-pipe. Competitors perform a series of tricks while going down the pipe. The current world record for highest jump in a half-pipe is held by Joffrey Pollet-Villard, with 26 feet 3 inches. The sport is considered to be dangerous compared to other sports, and helmets are required to be worn during competitions. Half-pipe skiing has been part of the Winter X Games since 2002, and made its Olympic debut at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. David Wise of the United States of America became the first Olympic champion in this discipline with a total of 92.00 points.
Marie-Claude Asselin is a Canadian former freestyle skier competing from 1977 to 1982 in which she was a three-time world champion.
Passion for Skiing is a book that was published in 2010 about the contributions of people from Hanover, New Hampshire and Dartmouth College to winter activities, particularly the sport of downhill skiing. The book highlights the history of skiing from 1910 to the current era. It was written by Dartmouth alumnus Stephen L. Waterhouse, a native of Sanford, Maine and part-time Vail, Colorado resident, with the help of other alumni and ski historians. The entire 426-page book, with its more than 50 contributing authors scattered across the US and abroad, was edited solely via email by Nick Stevens, a former Dartmouth ski instructor, on his home computer in Maryland, and printed by Whitman Communications of Lebanon, New Hampshire.
Ski ballet is a form of ballet performed on skis. It is very similar to figure skating, combining spins, jumps, and flips in a two-minute routine choreographed to music. It was part of the professional freestyle skiing tours of the 1970s and 1980s and then an official FIS and Olympic discipline until the year 2000. Ski ballet became known as Acroski in the 1990s in an effort to legitimize its place among the competitive ski community, especially to the FIS. It is no longer a part of competitive freestyle skiing.
Michel Daigle is a pioneer of freestyle skiing. During his career, Daigle reached the winners podium 34 times. He is considered one of the founders of freestyle skiing, alongside Darryl Bowie and John Johnston and has been credited with the growth of freestyle skiing in the mid 1970s. Daigle competed in ski ballet, moguls and aerials.
Greg Athans was a Canadian freestyle skier competing from 1976 to 1986 winning titles in multiple disciplines. Athans was also Canadian national waterskiing champion on fifteen occasions. He competed in the Canada Games, winning gold medals in the alpine slalom in 1971, and water skiing in 1973, becoming the first athlete to win gold medals at both the summer and winter games. In 1981, he was the best all-round competitor at the 1980 FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup, winning the World Cup Grand Prix Award. He retired in 1982.
Trace Worthington is an American former freestyle skier. He competed in two events at the 1994 Winter Olympics. After retiring from the sport, Worthington became a sports commentator, working for both NBC Sports and CBS Sports.
Wayne Wong taught me a lot about skiing. One thing he especially recommended as an ideal off-season exercise was cycling. As a result, I started paying attention to my bike for a change.