Burton's snowboards were made of laminated wood (something that had never been seen before) and he achieved instant success when he won a Snurfer competition using his own "Snurfer" board. One major reason for Jake being able to win the competition was the skiing styled bindings that he added to his board. This enabled Jake to better control his board. At the same time, another snowboarder started winning competitions using his own design. Tom Sims borrowed an idea from skateboarding, and that was to glue sheets of aluminium to the bottom of pieces of laminated wood. This meant friction was reduced but stability decreased, so riders still had to use the lead rope that first appeared with the original "Snurfer". Board technology continued to improve the gliding and therefore the riding ability of the boards. As the board design evolved, more and more riders started taking off the lead rope, and the first high-back bindings were produced by snowboard pioneers, Flite.
Snowboard racing started to take off around the world and snowboard manufacturers were constantly challenging themselves to create new and faster designs. Initially this led to asymmetrical boards appearing. The benefit of asymmetrical snowboards is that riders are more balanced and it's easier to turn when they move from their toeside to their heelside as they turn. As riders are more balanced, they are able to ride more quickly. By 1998, snowboarding had become very popular and had become a Winter Olympic event. During this time the ISF (international Snowboarding Federation) was created to help judge major events. However, the Olympic Committee dismissed the ISF and installed the FIS (Federation International de Ski) to judge events. This was very controversial as FIS had always been just ski related, and many snowboarders were concerned that the governing body wouldn't understand about snowboarding.
