Winter Games NZ gearing up for snowboard event of the year
Monday 24 August 2009, 4:50PM
By EveNZ
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It’s less than 24 hours until the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup Halfpipe at Cardrona Alpine Resort as part of the inaugural 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games. With a field that reads like the who’s who of snowboarding, it promises to be the most significant winter sports event of the Southern Hemisphere season.
The start list features no less than three Olympic gold medallists – Shaun White (USA), Hannah Teter (USA) and Kelly Clark (USA) – Olympic silver medallist Gretchen Bleiler (USA), current world number one’s Ryoh Aono (JPN) and Jiayu Liu (CHI) and top ranked TTR riders Mason Aguirre (USA) and Jamie Anderson (USA). Former World Cup champions, Mathieu Crepel (FRA) and Iouri Podladchiok (SUI) are also competing.
FIS Snowboard Race Director, Marcel Looze, said the field is one of the best he has ever seen for a snowboard World Cup, rivalling the Olympics in standard.
“The best riders in the world are here, the pipe is in fantastic shape – it doesn’t get any better than this,” he said. “All of the top 10 ranked women in the World Cup have travelled to this important event and six of the top 10 men. Olympic qualification is their goal and with the right result, they could be well on their way to representing their country after tomorrow.”
The LG Snowboard FIS World Cup Halfpipe qualifiers start at 9.00am at Cardrona tomorrow (25 August) and continues with the semi finals and finals on Wednesday 26 August from 10.00am. For further information and results, visit www.wintergamesnz.com.