Mountain became a legendary training ground for world-renowned snowboarders such as Tricia Byrnes and Ross Powers , who went on to win world championships and compete in the Olympics after snowboarding was made an official Olympic sport at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano , Japan . In 2012 , the U . S . Open Snowboarding Championships were moved to Vail , which signified the end of a storied chapter of Vermont winter sports history .
Though the influence and reach of Burton Snowboards and the sport of snowboarding had grown far beyond the borders of the Green Mountain State , the local community has continued to come together for the Vermont Open snowboarding competition series in the years following the move of the U . S . Open Snowboarding Championships , and the local snowboarding scene continues to thrive .
In a beautifully serendipitous turn of events , one of Burton ’ s founding employees , Mimi Wright , has teamed with renowned sculptor and bronze artist Jason Dreweck to develop the Snowboard National Monument in Londonderry , Vermont . Once completed , the Snowboard National Monument will stand as a gorgeous and dynamic sculptural embodiment of Southern Vermont ’ s contributions to local and global snowboarding culture .
The fearless twists and turns of the corkscrewing snowboarders featured in the sculpture serve as a perfect metaphor for how a scrappy group of Southern Vermont-based visionaries beat the odds to build the sport of snowboarding from the ground up with confidence , drive , momentum , and vision .
FOR MORE ABOUT THE HISTORY OF SNOWBOARDING :
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