If there’s one thing that 50% of the population will remember about this year’s Olympic snowboarding, it will be Shaun White’s gold medal winning halfpipe run. For the other 50% the defining moment was when Hannah Teter and Clair ‘her surname sounds like a ceramic bum washing device’ Bidez, featured in the 2010 Sports Illustrated swimwear edition. 

As a result the defining moments of the Oympics according to a large number of snowboard blogs and forums have been; Hannah Teter’s bum, Clair Bidez’s weird belly button, the impressive amount of Photoshoping involved and definitive proof that it is not possible to look sexy in rubber boots...

So the Olympic snowboarding is as good as over for another four year, and now the news coverage can get back to the war in Afghanistan and that’s exactly what we are going to do. This week illicit takes a look at a snowboarding destination that’s not on most snowboarder’s travel plans due to the constant danger of war-induced death.

Last Resort No. 3 - Snowboarding Afghanistan

People have been warring in Afghanistan since the duel inventions of Afghanistan and people. There are very few places on earth that have seen so many and such varied people, come to practice the art of running amok. Just a few of the notable exponents, so far, include; Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the British (4 times and counting), the Russian Empire, the USSR and most recent bandwagon jumpers - the USA.

Notorious Snowboarders #2: Melo “Mellow“ Imai

In the next few days as the Vancouver Olympics kicks off a select few snowboarders from around the world will compete for Olympic glory. For a few weeks these previously relatively unknown athletes will be thrust into the spotlight and carry the hopes of their nations on their shoulders. A very small number will succeed and become household names, but most will not, and after the Olympics they will quietly go back to relative obscurity. This is the tale of one snowboarder who was a Japanese medal hope in the 2006 Olympics before a crash and the results of a difficult upbringing took her, not only back to obscurity, but into infamy...

In the lead up to the impending Vancouver Winter Olympics it looked like one of the big snowboarding stories was going to be the first appearance by a Bahamian snowboarder - Korath Wright.