Friday, February 19, 2010

U.S. Olympic Snowboard Committee Announces Radical New Advance in Equipment

Vancouver, CA: Just hours after a historic win by American Snowboarder Shawn White in the half pipe competition, executives from the U.S. Olympic Snowboard Committee announced they would be adding a new piece of equipment to the official uniform next year. The new equipment is still in testing, but is code named “the belt” and is designed to help hold up the snowboarder’s pants.

Greg Dacyshyn, Senior Vice President of Creative at Burton, the uniform sponsor, who was present for the announcement, said, “We’ve had really good results from our initial tests and will be testing ‘the belt’ with a few select riders in competitions in the coming months.” He expected wider adoption after the initial test phase.

The new equipment is designed to fit around the athlete’s waist and support his trousers. It leverages the performance benefits of GORE-TEX® fabric, the official fabric of the 2010 U.S. Snowboarding Team’s Olympic outerwear. One of the members of the women’s team was actually seen sporting “the belt” in the Olympic competition this year.

The athletes appeared enthusiastic about this revolutionary advance in equipment. Scott Lago, who won the Bronze medal with a stunning performance of the double cork, modeled the new equipment and noted, “I was skeptical at first. I mean, my dad wears one... it seemed so useless. But after I tested it, I noticed less snow in my ass when I would fall.” Seth Wescott, winner of the gold medal in the Snowboard Cross competition agreed. “It helps keep my pants right at mid-thigh height when I ride. No more pulling my pants up from my knees on a particularly gnarly crash.”

When asked what’s next for the equipment engineering team, officials were notably secretive, but one engineer let slip that the team was studying the use of a new item code named “suspenders,” saying someone got the idea from watching old Mork And Mindy reruns. The team is thinking the rainbow pattern might go really well with the plaid coats unveiled just before competition this year. He continued, “The result will be a progressive and fresh look that challenges the former conservatism of the Olympics.”

This is one model of the revolutionary new equipment called “The Belt” under consideration for use by the U.S. Olympic Snowboard Team.

3 comments:

noelle said...

oh my gosh. your best post EVER. when we were watching the snowboard competition i must have said to steve like five times, "why don't they wear pants that fit??!!? how can they even compete with their pants around their butts? isn't that annoying?"

ha ha ha - this is so great.

Amanda Morgan said...

Michelle told me I had to check out this post, and I was laughing out loud! I too was mystified that olympic caliber athletes would put four years of training on the line while they wrestled with their pants. I literally thought we were going to see pants around the ankles at the end of a few of those runs! You should send a copy to the team!

The Photo Scrooge? said...

Noelle, the best part is the quote at the end is real--it's from the news conference when they unveiled the plaid jackets. Did you see the Japanese boarder who actually pulled his pants lower after he crashed out?