up on a homemade snowboard with a formica bottom that turned out to not slide so well on the snow. In 1982, the first USA National Snowboard race was held near Woodstock, Vermont, at Suicide Six. The race, organized by Graves, was won by Burton's first team rider Doug Bouton. In 1983, the first World Championship halfpipe competition was held at Soda Springs, California. Tom Sims, founder of Sims Snowboards, organized the event with the help of Mike Chantry, a snowboard instructor at Soda Springs. In 1985, the first World Cup was held in Zürs, Austria, further cementing snowboarding's recognition as an official international competitive sport. In 1990, the International Snowboard Federation (ISF) was founded to provide universal contest regulations. In addition, the United States of America Snowboard Association (USASA) provides instructing guidelines and runs snowboard competitions in the U.S. today, high-profile snowboarding events like the Winter X Games, Air & Style, US Open, Olympic Games and other events are broadcast worldwide. Many alpine resorts have terrain parks. At the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, Snowboarding became an official Olympic event. France's Karine Ruby was the first ever to win an Olympic gold medal for Woman's Snowboarding at the 1998 Olympics, while Canadian Ross Rebagliati was the first ever to win an Olympic gold medal for Men's Snowboarding. Initially, ski areas adopted the sport at a much slower pace than the winter sports public. Indeed, for many years, there was animosity between skiers and snowboarders, which led to an ongoing skier vs snowboarder feud. Early snowboards were banned from the slopes by park officials. For several years snowboarders would have to take a small skills assessment prior to being allowed to ride the chairlifts. It was thought that an unskilled snowboarder would wipe the snow off the mountain. In 1985, only seven percent of U.S. ski areas allowed snowboarding, with a similar proportion in Europe. As equipment and skills improved, gradually snowboarding became more accepted. In 1990, most major ski areas had separate slopes for snowboarders. Now, approximately 97% of all ski areas in North America and Europe allow snowboarding, and more than half have jumps, rails and half pipes. In 2004, snowboarding had 6.6 million active participants. An industry spokesman said that "twelve year-olds are out-riding adults." The same article said that most snowboarders are 18–24 years old and that women constitute 25% of participants. There were