Lech am Arlberg, Austria – Five-time snowboardcross Winter X Games gold medalist Nate Holland of Olympic Valley, Calif., started the season off with a win in the opening World Cup in Lech Monday night. Holland led a string of four U.S. athletes into the top 15. The women’s contest was won by Canada’s Dominique Maltais.nHolland, who went into the final rounds seeded fifth, pulled out his fourth career World Cup win along with taking the overall points leader yellow bib for the first time. Having won the first World Cup of the season, he headed into Tuesday’s race wearing yellow as the overall World Cup points leader.
“This is the first time I’ve ever had the yellow bib – I’m the points leader,” said a tired Holland after clinching the victory under the lights. “Tonight I finally got the yellow bib and hopefully I can hold onto it longer than one night.”
After posting a successful protest in the quarterfinals, Holland put the pedal to the metal topping both the semi final and final rounds. Holland beat out a tough field in the finals edging out Canada’s Tom Velisek for the win.
“In the final heat I was in third place in turn one. Everything just started clicking and I started making passes,” said Holland of his winning run. “Half way down I passed into first and at that point I knew those guys were behind me and I just pinned it to the finish line.”
With conditions superb, Holland took full advantage of the course filled with long straight sections and good turns building confidence for the remainder of the season.
“I’ve always been a confident rider and traditionally within my riding I usually start getting my results mid season – towards the end of the season,” explained Holland. “This last year and this year I’ve been able to start pulling some results earlier in the season and I’m happy with that. I have to contribute a lot of that to my fall training.”
Velisek, who is making a return on the Canadian snowboard team, was fourth at the 2009 World championships in Gangwon, Korea. With today’s second place, Velisek now counts five World Cup podiums to his career credit. Canadian rookie Dan Csokonay of Calgary, Alberta, who has only six world cup starts under his belt, led the medal round all the way until the halfway mark when he fell and had to settle for the fourth place behind Austria’s Mario Fuchs. Fellow Canadian Kevin Hill of Vernon, British Columbia also started the season on a high note with an impressive seventh place.
Americans Shaun Palmer (South Lake Tahoe, Calif.) advanced to the semifinals but did not qualify for the final round, finishing sixth, while Jayson Hale (Sierraville, Calif.) was 11th and Jonathon Cheever (Saugus, Mass.) 14th, not moving past the quarterfinals round.
In the women’s race, Canada went one-two with Olympic gold medalist Maëlle Ricker, of Squamish, British Columbia, finishing second behind Maltais. Japan’s Yuka Fujimori was third, while U.S. Snowboarding’s Callan Chythlook-Sifsof (Girdwood, AK) finished 12th.
“It definitely feels good for my confidence. I had been waiting a long time for this win,” said Maltais, who celebrated her 29th birthday earlier in November. “All my runs were pretty solid. The training we had yesterday went really well. I had some great training in the months and weeks leading up to the season.
“I am really confident for this upcoming season. I had a great start in the final race, and it was a tight one with Maëlle all the way through. Both Maëlle and I knew our lines, so we played back and forth. We both did what we had to do, and it made for a really nice race,” added Maltais, the 2006 Olympic bronze medalist from Petite-Rivière Saint-François, Quebec.
It was Maltais’ fourth career victory, but her first since March 17, 2006. Maltais currently has career 18 podiums on the FIS World Cup tour. Last season, Maltais stepped on the podium five times but the victory eluded her, mostly to her teammate Ricker.
There were six USA riders competing in Lech, with the remainder of the team training at a special early season camp in Telluride, Colo., prior to next week’s Visa U.S. Snowboardcross Cup World Cup.
OFFICIAL RESULTS
World Cup
Lech am Arlberg, Austria
December 7, 2010
Snowboardcross
Men
1. Nate Holland, Squaw Valley, CA
2. Tom Velisek, Canada
3. Mario Fuchs, Austria
4. Dan Csokonay, Canada
5. David Speiser, Germany
Women
1. Dominique Maltais, Canada
2. Maelle Ricker, Petite-Rivière Saint-François, QC, Canada
3. Yuka Fujimori, Japan
4. Deborah Anthoniozz, France
5. Marie Ramberger, Austria