The Springboard event is misnamed. Once a competitor chops a big enough notch in the pole to jam a board into the pole, then climb atop that board and repeat the task, then climb atop the second board and whale away on a 12-inch pine slab atop the pole, he is hardly springing.

Mostly, he is trying to stay as steady as possible, so all the energy behind his swing goes straight into the target, instead of rippling back through the board and off into nowhere.

For this, he requires a strong, firm board that will hold his 200- to 300-pound frame without wilting or wobbling or — Heaven forbid — slipping out of the pole. In fact, the less spring, the better.

To achieve board greatness, the competitors at the ESPN Great Outdoor Games have boards made of a light, inflexible wood such as poplar, basswood or aspen. They're all about five-feet-long, give or take, and have a steel reinforcement on their tapered front that bites into the pole.

The whole rig looks like someone bolted a couple of slightly V-shaped horseshoes onto the end of a rough, ugly wooden ski. And yet, it's critical equipment.

"The steel clip on the end of the board is one of the most important things in the world," said Dave Bolstad, the 2003 Great Outdoor Games gold medalist in the event. "That's what your bloody life hangs in the balance on."

Springboarders cherish their boards. They carry a couple or three of them, and if one is split, well, that one can be used lower on the pole, where the only chopping that will be done is to carve another notch, maybe seven strokes.

But no one wants a split board. Competitors don't leave boards in the sun, don't leave them moist and for the most part, don't bang them around.

"I've had mine since I started springboard chopping about 10 years ago," said springboarder Matt Bush, who uses boards of basswood, coated in fiberglass for stiffness and sand for grip. "They last forever. Unless the airlines get abusive with them. I think sometimes they load equipment with them while they've got them.

"I nearly left mine at home rather than fly with them. It's another bag, and in this day and age they want to charge you an arm and a leg to ship them. It depends on the airline, but they'll whack you over weight, over length, you know, 80 bucks every time you turn around."

Had he left his boards in New York, Bush would have borrowed a pair, a common practice. Three-time Great Outdoor Games gold medalist Mitch Hewitt once won the event on borrowed boards, after an airline misplaced his.

The only matter of much personal preference is the board's grip. Carpet, surfing wax, sandpaper, foam rubber, skateboard grip tape, burlap — if it has surface tension, someone has stuck it on the top of a springboard.

Rare is a bare board. When springboarder Matt Gurr made boards for Jason Wynyard, though, he left off any grip, knowing the New Zealander preferred a naked board.

"As far as I'm concerned he's a fool for not having it," Gurr said.

Later, Wynyard approached Gurr and told him, "That bloody bottom board is pretty good, you know?"

Bolstad said Gurr is the best carver of springboards in the world. He fells the trees himself, then carves them and clips them.

"A board's a board as far as I'm concerned," Gurr said. "The thing with boards is, you get used to them. I've got three at home and the thing is they become second nature to you.

"It's just like anything else. You get in a different car, it doesn't drive the same, you know? The principles the same. My boards, I can pick them up in the dark and know which one I have."

Precision like that is appreciated, because if the boards fail, the consequences can be dangerous or embarrassing. Bad placement or a bad clip can cause a pole to spit out a board or split altogether.

It's a rarity for such a thing to happen in high-level competition, although it has been known to happen.

"ESPN should put together over the years, like with the timber sports series now, they should put together a good bloopers tape, because there are some dandy crash scenes that if you played a tape of that together, you would just roll," Bush said. "I've seen guys crash every way known to man.

"The fall is no problem. It's only seven feet from your feet to the ground. You can land nearly any position and be all right. It's that five-pound razor blade — you don't want that stuck in your head."