February 28, 2001

PARK CITY, Utah - The FIS Snowboard World Cup tour makes its lone domestic stop this week as the X Nix Countdown to Gold rolls into Park City Mountain Resort March 1-4. It will be the third season in a row that Park City has hosted the event.

It will be the last opportunity for the athletes to check out the venues that will host all of the snowboard events at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The event is also crucial to worldwide nations as they are trying to obtain maximum quota spots for the Olympics.

The World Cup begins Thursday with the halfpipe competition in Park City's new superpipe, located in Eagle Race Arena. The pipe was shaped by Planet Design's Pat Malendoski (who has also been retained to build the Olympic superpipe next year) and will be the first time the Countdown to Gold (and the Olympics) has featured a superpipe. The pipe opened to the public in mid-January and has garnered rave reviews.

The superpipe contest should draw a world-class field as the athletes are pumped up to ride the Olympic venue. U.S. Snowboard Team rider Tommy Czeschin (Mammoth Lakes, CA) won last year's event and is coming off his first World Cup win of the season Feb. 25 in Asahikawa, Japan. The silver medal winner at this year's X Games, Czeschin seems to go bigger and bigger each time he drops into a superpipe.

Park City local Ricky Bower, Rob Kingwill (Jackson, WY) and Zach Horwitz (Carbondale, CO), all members of the U.S. Snowboard Team, are scheduled to ride. Olympic bronze medalist Ross Powers (S. Londonderry, VT) will also be on hand to test out the huge transitions in the Park City pipe.

Tricia Byrnes (Stratton Mt., VT), who also won last season's Countdown to Gold, is ripping this year as she has collected a World Cup victory, two Chevy Truck U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix wins and took the season's first Vans Triple Crown superpipe event.

Byrnes will have plenty of competition to worry about, including '98 Olympian Michele Taggart (Salem, OR) and Canadian Natasza Zurek, one of the only females to throw inverted 540s in the pipe.

The parallel giant slalom finals will be held Sunday on CB's Run in Eagle Race Arena. Again, the top riders in the world will compete as the PGS, like the superpipe, is an Olympic discipline. Top U.S. riders include Rosey Fletcher (Girdwood, AK), Chris Klug (Aspen, CO) and Sondra Van Ert (Ketchum, ID).

Fletcher has recorded seven World Cup podium finishes this season, most recently a second in PGS on Feb. 24 in Japan. She currently sits third in the World Cup parallel standings behind Italian Carmen Ranigler and France's Karine Ruby.

For Klug, a '98 Olympian, it has been an amazing return to action this year as he had a liver transplant just this past June. He has podiumed in his last two World Cup races and won a parallel giant slalom in Italy back in January.

U.S. Team racer Van Ert owns an impressive career resume and is one of the most experienced racers on the circuit. A '98 Olympian, Van Ert finished just off the podium in fourth in a World Cup PGS race in Sapporo, Japan.

Friday night, an exhibition quarterpipe event will be held under the lights at the base of the superpipe. Competitors will launch themselves off the kicker to try for the $3,500 top prize. The field will consist of 18 men and 10 women.

An invitation-only contest, Powers, JJ Thomas (Golden, CO) and Jaime Macleod (Andover, NH) are slated to jump. Thomas won the Grand Prix slopestyle at Okemo Mountain, Vermont, while Macleod won the slopestyle gold at this year's X Games, as well as the slopestyle at the Okemo Grand Prix.

X Nix Countdown to Gold Snowboard World Cup
Thursday, March 1
9 a.m.; superpipe qualificiations
1:30 p.m.; superpipe finals

Friday, March 2
7 - 7:45 p.m.; quarterpipe warm-up
8 - 9 p.m.; quarterpipe event

Sunday, March 4
9:30 a.m.; parallel giant slalom qualifications 1 p.m.; parallel giant slalom finals