Mammoth Lakes, CA – The first stop of the U.S. Grand Prix tour will be held at California’s Mammoth Mountain today through Sunday. Both snowboarders and freeskiers will compete in halfpipe and slopestyle.
With a fantastic start to the 2015-16 season, Mammoth has plenty of snow in their legendary Unbound terrain park and the 22-foot Main Park pipe is open and ready for world-class action from U.S. Olympians such as David Wise (Reno, Nev.), Maddie Bowman (S. Lake Tahoe, Calif.), Kelly Clark (West Dover, Vt.) and Greg Bretz (Mammoth Lakes, Calif.). It’s an astounding reversal, as last year’s event was abbreviated due to a lack of snow.
“I’m excited that two of my favorite things – Mammoth and the Grand Prix – are coming together again,” said Clark. “Mammoth and the Unbound crew always do a great job with the pipe and they have a long history hosting some of the best events in the sport.”
The event will serve as the first FIS World Cup of the year for both the freeskiing and snowboarding disciplines. Points will go towards the Association of Freeskiing Professionals (AFP) rankings and the World Snowboard Tour (WST) rankings. Halfpipe skiing and snowboarding finals will be broadcast on NBC with slopestyle skiing and snowboarding finals on NBCSN, along with live streaming of all finals on NBC Sports Live Extra.
“The iconic slopestyle and halfpipe venues at Mammoth are the perfect kick off to the 20th year of the U.S. Grand Prix,” stated USSA’s Chief Marketing Officer Michael Jaquet. “The USSA is once again delivering an action-packed weekend on the hill and through our extensive live streaming and broadcast schedule. With the next stop in Park City and the Polartec Big Air at Fenway Park, it should be one of the best Grand Prix seasons ever.”
A total of 15 Canadian Freestyle Ski Team members will be competing in the four-day event, a tune-up for many of the same athletes competing at the X Games later this month in Aspen. Many of the Canadian slopestyle skiers spent their time between Calgary and Whistler fine tuning their runs and working on new tricks.
“We just got back from with Whistler and it has been absolutely fantastic this week,” said Canadian athlete Alex Bellemare.”As always, my big focus during training has been making sure all my jumps are clean and solid with grabs. Mammoth will be a great preparation event for many of us before the X Games. I want to be happy with my runs and see what they’re scored at.”
EVENT SCHEDULE
Jan. 21, 8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. – Visa U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix – Halfpipe Qualifiers
Jan. 21, 8:30 a.m. – 3:45 p.m. – U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix – Slopestyle Qualifiers
Jan. 22, 8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. – U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix – Halfpipe Qualifiers
Jan. 22, 8:30 a.m. – 3:45 p.m. – Visa U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix – Slopestyle Qualifiers
Jan. 23, 9:30 – 11:00 a.m. – Visa U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix – Halfpipe Finals
Jan. 23, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. – U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix – Slopestyle Finals
Jan. 24, 9:30 – 11:00 a.m. – U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix – Halfpipe Finals
Jan. 24, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. – Visa U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix – Slopestyle Finals
U.S. GRAND PRIX TELEVISION SCHEDULE (all times EST)
Jan. 24, 2:00 p.m. – NBCSN – U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix – Slopestyle Finals
Jan. 24, 3:00 p.m. – NBC – Visa U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix – Halfpipe Finals
Jan. 27, 1:00 a.m. – NBCSN – Visa U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix – Slopestyle Finals
Jan. 30, 3:00 p.m. – NBC – U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix – Halfpipe Finals
Feb. 6, 8:00 p.m. – NBCSN – U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix – Slopestyle Finals (reair)
Feb. 7, 5:00 p.m. – NBCSN – Visa U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix – Slopestyle Finals