Breckenridge, CO – The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association has announced a unique partnership with Alli Sports, a division of the NBC Sports Group, to sanction its Dec. 12-15 Dew Tour iON Mountain Championships at Breckenridge, Colo., as a USSA event. The event, along with the four-stop Sprint U.S. Grand Prix will determine the athletes to be nominated by the USSA for the U.S. Olympic freeskiing and snowboarding team.

“The addition of a fifth event to be used for Olympic selection will be an important complement to our established calendar and greatly aid in the fair selection of our 2014 Olympic Team,” Jeremy Forster, USSA Freeskiing/Snowboarding Director, said in announcing the partnership.

The five competitions will be used to nominate the team headed to Sochi, Russia this February for halfpipe snowboarding plus the new events of slopestyle skiing and snowboarding along with halfpipe skiing. Each of the events will be broadcast on either NBC or NBCSN.

The event will align athletically on format, judging and scoring with the Grand Prix, based on the Olympic formats, to provide a comparable athletic competition. The USSA will be responsible for entry criteria for U.S. athletes in sync with the other selection events.

“The Dew Tour and USSA partnership makes our event bigger and more significant to the athletes, industry and fans,” added Dew Tour General Manager Kenny Mitchell. “The Dew Tour is a top-tier event with significant broadcast and digital exposure. Now it’s among events being used for USSA team selection process, which is a great development for the industry and fans and drives home the importance of the Dew Tour iON Mountain Championships.”

The final freeskiing event is set for Jan. 18 in Park City, Utah, with the final snowboarding competition the following day at Mammoth Mountain, Calif.