US SBX Gears Up For First World Cup

Press Release

• September 09 2009
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The first Olympic qualifying events are on tap this weekend in South America. The SBX action headed for Chapelco on Saturday is intense as the U.S. athletes in Argentina are all systems go for the season’s first World Cup, which will be the first in a series of five qualification stops on the World Cup tour for athletes to make the Olympic team.

“We trained for a few days before coming here on a section of a course, so that was good. Everyone is looking really strong, but it’s hard to tell at this point. You don’t really know how everyone else is riding,” U.S. Snowboarding Head Coach Peter Foley said. “This is the first of five Olympic selection events, so it’s huge. It seems like everybody is on it so far. They’re all prepared and they know what to do.”

On the men’s side, the U.S. has prepped an SBX crew that seeps with talent thanks to the prowess of Olympic gold medalist Seth Wescott (Sugarloaf, ME), five-time X Games gold medalist Nate Holland (Squaw Valley, CA), X Games silver medalist Graham Watanabe (Sun Valley, ID), World Championship bronze medalist Nick Baumgartner (Iron River, MI) and more.

For the women, it doesn’t hurt to have Lindsey Jacobellis (Stratton Mountain, VT), the most successful World Cup SBX athlete, male or female, riding for the red white and blue.

As far as feelings go for the athletes, there is excitement to get the season kicked off, as well as a little pressure not knowing how strong the competition looks until they’re out of the start gate Saturday.

“I am very excited, but I feel a little bit of pressure, not because of the Olympics, but because the first event every year is brand new,” Watanabe said. “There are a lot of good riders here, but I feel very good.”

Making her first appearance in a year on the World Cup will be Callan Chythlook Sifsof, who said she’s ready to sink her teeth back in to the competition season.

“Training has been going as good as it can be. I feel like I’m riding even better than when I was on snow before,” Chythlook Sifsof said. “I feel really good. This is the first competition since my knee injury, everything feels really good and I can’t wait to start racing.”

All eyes are now on the completion of the SBX course, which has yet to open for training.

“The course isn’t done yet, but it’s starting to shape up. It looks like it has potential and could be really good. We’re hoping for the best,” Foley said.

“I looked at the course today. It’s a little short and flat, but there is more work to be done on it,” Watanabe added.

But the closure of the course hasn’t kept the athletes off the snow and out of whatever powder stashes they can find.

“Since we’ve gotten here to Chapelco we’ve just been free riding - there’s been no training, but we’ve had some really fun powder and good jumps,” Foley said.

Qualifications for the World Cup get under way on Friday, and Saturday the world will get a look at how the snowboardcross competition looks to stack up for the season.

To keep track of the latest from Chapelco, tune in to U.S. Snowboarding’s at www.ussa.org.