Taking aim at Games

Snowboardcross relay looks to '14

By Marty Basch, Globe Correspondent  |  March 5, 2009

Could Team Snowboardcross become an Olympic event in 2014? For the second season, US World Cup venues have showcased the relay race style exhibition event where teams of two are formed to compete head-to-head on a snowboardcross course. The first riders take their runs and their teammates start their descent when the first rider crosses the finish line.

"This would be more about nations than about the individuals because of the team aspect," said Seth Wescott of the US Snowboarding Team. "This format takes a little bit of pressure off you because you have a teammate."

Wescott said the idea came from the X Games discipline ultracross, where a skier and snowboarder were paired on a team. The sport would have to get the nod from the International Ski Federation and International Olympic Committee.

The exhibition was to have started at last Saturday's World Cup at Sunday River but was canceled because of a gate malfunction.

Chelone Miller is back in competitive snowboarding. Bode Miller's younger brother was seriously injured in an October 2005 motorcycle accident in New Hampshire when he was riding without a helmet. Thrown from his bike, he landed on his head and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He now sports a lengthy scar from surgery. Miller, 25, is mounting a serious return to snow.

"I'd like to be able to compete at the top level in slopestyle and boardercross," he said at the Sunday River World Cup, where he finished 29th. With an eye on the 2010 Olympics, Chelone - who spends winters at Mammoth Mountain in California and summers with his family in Franconia, N.H. - went the holistic route during his recovery, opting for herbal tinctures to remedy a series of seizures last fall.

"There haven't been any problems in my head," he said. "No headaches. I'm in the best shape of my life. It's all good."

What started as a Boston area social club in the 1930s has graduated to an Alpine competition program with an impressive roster of members. Early members of the Waterville Valley Black and Blue Trail Smashers would make the extended journey to the White Mountains to blaze their own trails for ski racing. Some of competitors would come home with black and blue marks, which led to the club's name.

To mark the 75th anniversary of the club, which is now a blend of the Waterville Valley Academy and a weekend training program thanks to the direction of two-time Olympian and Waterville Valley Ski Area founder Tom Corcoran, a recognition dinner is scheduled during the weekend of March 20-22.

The club has been influential in the careers of many skiers and snowboarders, including 1988 Olympian Felix McGrath, 1998 Olympic gold medalist Nikki Stone, '06 Olympians Hannah Kearney and Michelle Gorgone, '02 Olympian Peter Thorndike, and a host of pro snowboarders, including Pat Moore and current Burton Global Open Series leader Chas Guldemond.

"The recipe works here if you want to go to that next level of snowboarding or skiing," said Bill Enos, the snowboard program director and coach for Waterville Valley Academy's WVBBTS.

March is when cross-country skiers test themselves. The TD Banknorth/New England Nordic Ski Association marathon series hits full stride with Saturday's Rangeley Lakes Loppet at the base of Saddleback Mountain. Skiers race - or take a leisurely touring pace - through the forest on a 25-kilometer loop course. The Sugarloaf Ski Marathon set for March 22 is more challenging with 30- and 50-kilometer options.

With a climb of more than 2,200 vertical feet up to about the 4-mile mark on the famed Mount Washington Auto Road, Sunday's Ski to the Clouds race is a 10-kilometer challenge at Great Glen Trails. The freestyle event has competitors first tackling the trail system at the base of the mountain before the climb. Prize purse: $1,400.

Double world champion Lindsey Vonn last weekend became the second skier in US history to repeat as World Cup downhill champion. At Bansko, Bulgaria, Vonn did not press her lead, finishing tied for 12th.

That gave the 24-year-old from Park City, Utah, an insurmountable 111-point margin over her Swiss friend and rival, Dominique Gisin. Vonn also took the downhill gold medal in the World Championships at Val d'Isere, France, last month.

Vonn, who is also on track to repeat as overall World Cup champion, equaled the feat of her friend and mentor, Picabo Street, who won downhill titles in 1995 and '96.

Ryan St. Onge put down two of his best jumps of the season yesterday to win the gold medal in aerials at the Freestyle World Championships in Inawashiro, Japan. St. Onge, a US team veteran from Winter Park, Colo., made what coach Matt Christensen called "a perfect jump" in winning the title.

"I came out here today and did two nice jumps," St. Onge said. "One of them was one of the nicest jumps I have ever done in my life . . . This is huge. I don't think it's hit me yet."

St. Onge's win marks the first aerials gold for an American jumper since Eric Bergoust won the Worlds 10 years ago. "Bergoust is my idol and always has been ever since I've been jumping," said St. Onge.

Anyone with an extra crash test dummy or two hanging around the garage will want to head to New Hampshire next weekend for a pair of bizarre ski competitions for inanimate objects.

Cannon will stage its 12th annual Crash Test Dummy Race March 14. "Competitors" must be built on a 2-foot square platform securely mounted to skis (no snowboards), and the dummy must be pulled to the start line at the top of the hill without riding a lift.

Mount Sunapee will host its third annual Dummy Big Air Contest March 15, which involves launching a fake human form of a skier or snowboarder off a jump. There is a $20 entry fee per dummy, and awards will go to best designed, biggest air, and most spectacular crash. Rules stipulate the dummy must weigh no more than 150 pounds, and "no explosives or flammable materials" are allowed.

Wildcat has dropped lift tickets to $9 for March 13 and 20 . . . Saddleback has a variety of midweek deals, all for $25: Monday (Ladies Day), Tuesday (Telemark Day), Wednesday (Men's Day), Thursday (Seniors Day) . . . Mad River Glen and Waterville Valley have $17 lift tickets on St. Patrick's Day . . . Jiminy Peak has the same $17 deal with presentation of a downloadable coupon from the resort's website . . . Soak in the spring skiing at Pat's Peak with "Sun Smart" $15 lift tickets March 23-25. One-third of the proceeds will benefit melanoma research.

Globe correspondents T.D. Thornton and Tony Chamberlain contributed to this report.