World Cup HP Tour Opens Thanksgiving
Saas Fee, Switzerland - U.S. Snowboarding kicks off the 2007 halfpipe season with a double dose of the World Cup tour in Saas Fee, the first of which is set for Thanksgiving Day followed by another on Saturday, Nov. 25.
With big guns blazing, the U.S. Team will be represented by 2006 Olympic silver medalist Gretchen Bleiler (Aspen, CO), 2002 Olympian Tricia Byrnes (Stratton Mountain, VT) and current world junior champion Clair Bidez (Minturn, CO). Riding for the men will be 2002 Olympian Tommy Czeschin (Mammoth Lakes, CA) and X Games medalists Steve Fisher (Breckenridge, CO) and Scotty Lago (Seabrook, NH).
"We are all looking forward to another fun and successful competition season," said Head Coach Mike Jankowski. "The Saas Fee World Cup is a great way to kick things into gear as we look towards the Breckenridge Grand Prix, World Championships, and beyond. Practice has been going well considering we have not been in a pipe since August in New Zealand. These riders are so talented and driven that it is hard to notice that this is their first competition of the season."
The annual kick-off to the World Cup halfpipe season, Saas Fee is nestled in the next valley from popular Zermatt and is unique in that private cars are not allowed in town due to the extremely narrow streets. Therefore, all visitors must park on the outskirts and take public transportation.
Pipe conditions on the glacier are variable and have been challenging, said Jankowski, but he remains confident that the U.S. Team will "ride like the champs they are."
Bleiler took most of the summer off snow to recover from the post Olympic media frenzy, but that was after she won four out of five Chevrolet U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix events en route to a silver medal in Torino. She then won the only domestic World Cup halfpipe event in Lake Placid, NY, to close out the year, sharing the top spot on the podium with Czeschin before taking second at the U.S. Open.
According to Jankowski, the scouting report for Lago, current Transworld Snowboarding Magazine cover man, is looking solid. "He is riding like the ripper that he is - 900s, 1080s - no problem. Fisher has also been riding super well in training stomping all of his technical bag of tricks with authority."
Lago is also fresh off a third place quarterpipe finish at the Abominable Snow Jam in July and a second at the New Zealand Open slopestyle in August where Byrnes was fourth in halfpipe and Bidez finished seventh.
Following Saas Fee, U.S. riders will return to the states for first stop of the Chevrolet U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix, set for Dec. 13-17 at Breckenridge, CO, the annual opening halfpipe competition of the season in North America.
Gretchen Bleiler gets funky in Olympic training at Bardonecchia