Olympic snowboarding and freeskiing qualifying begins in earnest this week with the Dew Tour iON Mountain Championships, held at Breckenridge ski resort in Colorado.
The headliner will be Shaun White, who will be among top competitors from the U.S. in the Olympic qualification for snowboarding and freeskiing. Kelly Clark is one of the top competitors on the women’s side. The goal is earning a berth on the U.S. team at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The Dew Tour iON Mountain Championships run Wednesday through Sunday. It’s the first of five stops in this Olympic qualification for snowboarding and freeskiing trials process. The other stops on the U.S. Grand Prix schedule – Copper Mountain, Colo., Northstar, Calif., Park City, Utah, and Mammoth Mountain, Calif.
Northstar will host Olympic qualifier Jan. 9-12
Northstar California will be on the national radar in early January when the Olympic qualification for snowboarding and freeskiing descends on the Lake Tahoe ski resort for the 2014 Sprint U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix.
White will be the most notable snowboarder to head down the halfpipe at Northstar ski resort, which hosts the 2014 Sprint U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix on Jan. 9-12.
White, who will once again train on the yet-to-be built superpipe at Northstar, is hoping to have a spot on the U.S. team locked up by the time the 2014 Sprint U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix lands in Truckee.
“It depends on where your point standing is (coming into the Northstar Grand Prix,” said White, who has trained at Northstar the previous two winters. “It’s more practice if you have locked up a spot for yourself. It can be grueling if you’re trying to win and put yourself in that pressure situation to land that run.”
Slopeside new Olympic event
The five events will determine Olympians in snowboard halfpipe and the new Olympic events of snowboard slopestyle and ski halfpipe and ski slopestyle. The Olympic rosters are expected to be announced Jan. 22.
The overall Olympic qualification standings will be determined by the two best results for an athlete over the five events. No more than four athletes can make the U.S. Olympic Team per event. It’s possible fewer than four will be named for some events.
Olympic hopefuls for men’s team
White’s competition to make the U.S. Olympic Team in the halfpipe will include all of his 2010 Olympic teammates – Greg Bretz, Scotty Lago and Louie Vito. The man most likely to break up that group a year ago, reigning U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix champion Luke Mitrani, broke his neck training in September and may never snowboard again.
Olympic hopefuls for women’s team
All four 2010 U.S. Olympians are vying to return to the Games, too — 2002 Olympic champion Kelly Clark, 2006 Olympic champion Hannah Teter, 2006 Olympic silver medalist Gretchen Bleiler and Elena Hight, the first woman to land a double cork.
