water skiing, sport of riding on skis along the water's surface while being towed by a motorboat. It probably originated on the French Riviera in the early 1920s, and was known in the United States by 1927. The American Water Ski Association, founded in 1939, held the first national championships that year. In recreational water skiing, the type of ski, length of tow rope, and speed of the boat vary with individual taste. In championship competitions, skis of hickory, ash, fiberglass, or aluminum are used. They must be at least 393/8 in. (1 m) long and not more than about 93/4 in. (25 cm) wide. There are usually three events in water ski tournaments: slalom, jumping, and trick riding. In the slalom the skiers must ski outside each of a staggered series of buoys. In jumping, contestants are towed over an inclined wooden ramp about 21 ft (6 m) long and 6 ft (1.8 m) high; jumps of 150 ft (46 m) from the point of takeoff have been recorded. In trick riding, contestants choose their own routines, many of them remarkably intricate. The World Water Ski Union (founded 1949) sponsors biennial international tournaments. Wakeboarding, which has similarities to snowboarding (see skiing), is gaining in popularity.

skiing, sport of sliding over snow on skis—long, narrow, flexible runners. Water skiing is a warm-weather sport in which a motor-propelled craft tows a skier through the water.

Equipment

Once made of highly polished wood, most skis are now made of plastics, polyurethane foam, and other materials. They come in many different sizes and styles, depending on whether their intended use is cross-country, downhill, ski jumping, freeskiing, or another branch of the sport. Traditional skis have an upturned tip at one end only; twin-tip skis, with upturned tips at both ends, were originally used in freeskiing, but versions are available for other uses. The bindings that attach the ski to the boot vary as well. Most skiers also use a pair of poles, each of which has a wriststrap on the top, a sharp tip on the bottom, and a circular ring about 4 in. (10 cm) from the tip to prevent it from sinking into the snow. The bottoms of skis may be waxed for maximum glide in varying snow conditions.

Types of Events

Traditional competitive skiing comprises four events: (1) downhill, a steep descent in a race against time; (2) slalom, raced on a sharply twisting course marked off by flags; (3) the ski jump, in which contestants leap from specially prepared jump slopes, and are judged on both distance and form; and (4) cross-country, in which skiers race over a long course (ranging from 10 km/6 mi to 50 km/31 mi in the Olympic games) on which the terrain and obstacles test stamina and maneuverability. The first two are known as Alpine events, the latter two as Nordic events.

Alpine competition now also includes the combined, with both downhill and slalom races; the giant slalom and the supergiant slalom, which resemble the slalom but use longer, less twisted courses that permit faster speeds, skiercross, in which several skiers race down a specially prepared course; and the freestyle events of moguls (a downhill race in which a score for form for jumps over large bumps, or moguls, is combined with the elapsed time) and aerials (acrobatic twists, flips, and the like performed in the air). Moguls, the first freestyle event in the Olympics, was added in 1992. Women compete in all but the ski jump. An Olympic event known as the Nordic combined comprises cross-country racing and ski jumping, and the biathlon events combine cross-country skiing with rifle shooting.

Snowboarding is a form of skiing that uses a single wide ski, or snowboard, and no poles, and has similarities to surfing and skateboarding. Originating in the 1960s, it grew rapidly in popularity from the late 1980s, and is now done at most ski resorts. Snowboarding became an Olympic sport in 1998; acrobatic competition on a halfpipe course and racing on giant slalom and snowboardcross courses comprise the current events.

Even newer is skiboarding, which originated in the late 1990s and employs shorter and wider skis that are usually used without poles. Skiboarding offers the skier some of the sensations of ice skating or in-line roller skating. It is generally easier to learn than skiing, in part because skiboards are easier to maneuver. In snowkiting a parachutelike airfoil (the "kite") and the wind are used to propel a skier or snowboarder across the snow and through the air.

History

Although its origin is obscure, skiing was a vital means of transportation and a valuable military skill in Scandinavia, where skis more than 4,000 years old have been discovered. Skiing was introduced into Central Europe at the close of the 16th cent. In the last half of the 19th cent., Norway held two-day carnivals that included races and jumping.

It is uncertain whether Americans learned skiing from natives or whether it was brought to America by Norwegian and Swedish immigrants in the mid-19th cent. The first U.S. ski club was formed in 1872, and the National Ski Association was founded in 1904. In 1924 the Fédération Internationale de Ski was founded, and skiing became part of the first Winter Olympics.

Skiing enjoyed a tremendous boom in the United States as a recreational sport from the 1930s, spurred by the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, N.Y. (1932 and 1988) and at Squaw Valley, Calif. (1960), and by the development of ski tows and lifts, which can place skiers at the summit of a run in minutes. Artificial snowmaking machines and the construction of runs of varying levels of difficulty have also contributed to the sport's expansion.

Sport of planing and jumping on water skis, broad skilike runners that a rider wears while being towed by a motorboat. The sport originated in the U.S. in the 1920s. International competitions have been held since 1946. Single-ski slalom competition is held on a course consisting of a specified number of buoys around which the skier must negotiate. Jumping competitions employ a ramp; skiers are judged for distance and style. Barefoot and trick skiing are also part of some competitions. A later development in waterskiing, wakeboarding began in the U.S. in the 1980s when surfers began riding their boards as they were pulled behind boats. Since the mid 1990s wakeboarding has been an event at both the Gravity Games and the X Games (see extreme sports) and has become the fastest-growing water sport worldwide.

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Sport and mode of transportation involving moving over snow on a pair of long flat runners (skis) attached to shoes or boots. Skiing was born in northern Europe; the oldest skis, found in Russia, are some 6,000 years old. The earliest skis were often short and broad. The first written references to skiing come from the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) and describe skiing in northern China. Skiing was used in warfare in Scandinavia from the 13th century or earlier to the 20th century. The earliest mode of skiing developed into the sport now called cross-country skiing. Competitive cross-country skiing began in Norway in the 1840s and had reached California by the 1860s. Improvements on primitive bindings circa 1860 led to greater popularity of recreational skiing. Ski-jumping competitions date from the 1870s. Downhill skiing was limited by the need to climb the hill before or after skiing down; the building of ski lifts began in the 1930s. Skis were originally made of a single piece of wood, usually hickory; laminated construction began in the 1930s, plastic running surfaces were introduced in the 1950s, and no wood has been used in the construction of downhill skis for several decades. The business of skiing began its serious growth in the 1930s and became explosive in the 1950s and '60s; huge resorts now dot the Austrian, Swiss, and Italian Alps, the Rocky Mountains, and other mountainous regions. Seealso Alpine skiing.

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Skiing in open country over rolling, hilly terrain. It originated in Scandinavia as a means of travel as well as recreation. The skies used are longer, narrower, and lighter than those used in Alpine skiing, and bindings allow more heel movement. The standard lengths of international races range from 10 to 50 km (6.2–31 mi) for men and 5 to 30 km (3.1–18.6 mi) for women. It has been included on the Olympics program since the first Winter Olympics in 1924.

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