SOME of the top skiers in the world will lead the U.S. Ski Team in the World Championships over the next two weeks.
Ten Olympians, including world championship medalists Lindsey Vonn, Julia Mancuso and Bode Miller, will represent the U.S. at the 2009 FIS Alpine World Championships starting Tuesday and running through Feb. 15 in Val d’Isere, France.
“We are bringing a powerful team to the worlds,” said U.S. Alpine Program Director Jesse Hunt. “We have seasoned World Championship medalists with Lindsey, Julia and Bode. Plus Ted [Ligety], Marco [Sullivan] and Steven [Nyman] have had success on the World Cup. Now they’re aiming for top results at worlds.”
Killington Resort-sponsored alpine racer Chelsea Marshall, from Pittsfield, Vt., will be among these great athletes.
“I just finished a long two weeks of racing,” Marshall said via e-mail. “I did not quite have the results I was looking for, but I gained plenty of experience on the World Cup circuit.”
Hunt also acknowledged two athletes having breakthrough seasons, TJ Lanning and Leanne Smith, who were injured on the eve of the naming of the team and will not be able to participate.
NBC will air same-weekend coverage of the World Championships on Feb. 7-8 and on Sunday, Feb. 15. NBC partner UniversalSports.com and Universal Sports TV will broadcast same-day coverage of the entire Championships, including live webcasts.
Sunday River welcomes the world of snowboarding when it hosts the Visa U.S. Snowboarding Cup Feb. 27-March 1. Snowboardcross and parallel giant slalom will make their sole U.S. World Cup stop.
The world’s best snowboardcross athletes are expected to compete, including Maine’s Olympic SBX gold medalist Seth Wescott, who recently won the first snowboardcross World Cup of his career on Dec. 20.
Olympic silver medalist Lindsey Jacobellis from Stratton, Vt., three-time X Games champion Nate Holland and snowboarding legend Shaun Palmer are among the other competitors.
Snowboardcross, always a crowd-pleasing event, has four riders at a time tackling a course full of turns and jumps. The discipline debuted at the 2006 Olympics in Turin.
