U.S. Snowboardcross athletes have put in the time this off-season and are ready to kick-off the 2019-20 FIS Snowboardcross World Cup season in Montafon, Austria, this weekend.
“We just finished a very solid two-week block of training in Pitztal, Austria leading up to this first World Cup,” said Head U.S. Snowboardcross Coach Peter Foley. “The athletes are really excited to finally get in the start gate and see what they can do against the rest of the world.”
This venue has been host to the SBX World Cup since 2012, but had to be canceled two times since then due to lack of snow and bad weather conditions. Since last year’s race was one of the canceled events, everybody is eager to get back to business at this resort. The Montafon venue features one of the most spectator-friendly venues on the World Cup tour with excellent viewing throughout the entire length of the course and grandstand seating at the bottom.
The U.S. Snowboardcross Team is rolling in with a stellar lineup including arguably the most dominant snowboardcross athlete in the history of the sport in Lindsey Jacobellis. Not only because of her 30 SBX World Cup victories (plus one in halfpipe!), which is the most for any SBX athlete, male or female, but also because of her five World Championship titles, her Torino 2006 Olympic silver medal, two crystal globes and 10 snowboardcross titles at the X-Games. Since winning the very first race of her career back in 2003-04, the Californian only finished outside of the top-10 four times in 78 events and shows no signs of slowing down at age 34.
Lindsey is not the only heavy hitter ready for gates to drop in Montafon. Double 2019 FIS Snowboardcross World Champion Mick Dierdorff is also ready to start his season on a positive note. Mick won the individual snowboardcross title at the 2019 FIS World Championships at Solitude Mountain Resort, becoming World Champion and also grabbing his first top-level international competition victory. He soon became a two-time World Champion when he and Lindsey won the inaugural mixed team snowboardcross event.
Joining Mick and Lindsey is a strong group of riders including U.S. Snowboardcross Team members Faye Gulini, Nick Baumgartner, Alex Deibold, Jake Vedder, Hagen Kearney, and Senna Leith. In addition, U.S. Development Group member Stacy Gaskill and Americans Anna Miller, Jonathan Cheever, Cole Johnson, and Paul Kamisky are set to compete.
HOW TO WATCH
Subject to change
All times EST
SNOWBOARD
December 13, 2019
7:00 a.m. – FIS Snowboardcross World Cup, Montafon, Austria – NBC Sports Gold
All streams will be available via desktop (NBCSports.com/Gold and OlympicChannel.com) as well as mobile, tablet and connected television platforms. The NBC Sports and Olympic Channel app are available on the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Store, Roku Channel Store, Apple TV and Amazon Fire.
