№ 1068-1070. The 20th winter Olympic games. Turin.

In 1965 Sherman Poppen noticed his daughter trying to slide down the mountain standing on the sledge. He linked together children’s mountain skies, put a rubber rug on them, fixed a rope “for ruling” to their fore-part and gave the new “slides” as a Christmas present to his daughter Wendy. That’s how Snurfer appeared and it made its debut as the first industrial snowboard in 1966. As surfing gained popularity at the end of 60s – beginning of 70s, more and more people were carried away by the idea of snow surf-riding. The first National Snow surf-riding Championship took place at the Suicide Six ski resort.

Luge has got a long and a rich history. The earliest records pertaining to luge contests date back to the beginning of the 19th century. The first Europe luge championship was carried out in the open air in 1914. Luge exists in the modern form for about half a century. The tobogganing was executed along the snow before. Only since 1958 lugers changed it to the ice covering. This fact increased the speed greatly. That’s the main difference from the previous period. Luging began to develop in our country from the beginning of 70-s of the 20th century, though the first luge routes appeared here only in the next decade. Luge was included in the Olympic Games program in 1964.

Speed Skating is one of the earliest sports. The first ivory skates are displayed in the British Museum. They are nearly 2000 years old. The first record of the word “skate” is dated to the middle of the 17th century. The word “skates” has come to the international sport from Russian language. The fore-part of the wooden skates was decorated by the horse head. So the word “konki” is appeared as a diminutive from the word “koni”. The first official skating events were held in Great Britain in January, 1763. The appearance of skates and the construction of skating-rinks Europe and in America in the middle of the 19 century contributed to the development of the Speed Skating. The first Speed Skating study-group appeared in Russia in St Petersburg in 1864. The All-Russian Speed Skating Union was founded in 1916. Speed Skating became a part of the Olympic program since the 1st Olympic Winter Games in 1924.