ASPEN — The Winter X Games will remain at the Roaring Fork Valley’s Buttermilk ski area through 2012.
The two-year extension of the partnership between ESPN and the Aspen Skiing Co. means Aspen gets the formerly rotating Winter X Games for 11 consecutive years.
Jack Wienert, executive director of the ESPN-owned X Games, said the games have found “a world-class partner” in Aspen Skiing Co.
“Having the biggest event in snowboarding in my hometown of Aspen makes it even more special,” snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler said.
Tight fit.
Those Austrians and French sure like their Lycra. The Euro racers in the soon-to-be-Olympic skicross contest have taken a page from their every-millisecond- counts racing brethren by donning skin-tight bodysuits. Apparently skiing’s governing body, FIS, has lifted — or allowed for a skewed interpretation — of what was long considered a skicross ban on Lycra. As a sport born of free-spirited Americans skiers, who eschew the tight suit, the emergence of Lycra is ironic.
It won’t be catching on with the American athletes, who are shepherding their homegrown sport into the Olympic spotlight in Whistler, British Columbia, next year.
“No. Been there. Done that,” said Daron Rahlves, who has spent almost half his lifetime shrink-wrapped in Lycra as an Olympic-level racer. “It’s funny-looking. There’s a place for that on the race circuit. We want to be wearing stuff everybody feels comfortable skiing in all day on the hill.
“What’s funny is that they, the Austrians, interpret it are perfectly happy skiing all day on the hill in skin-tight race suits.”
Bleiler Rx:
Bleiler has an extra obstacle in her quest for a repeat gold in Saturday’s snowboard superpipe contest: She may be suffering from the flu.
That could be the ultimate downer for Bleiler, considering this is the first Winter X to deliver equal cash prizes to men and women: $30,000 for a gold medal.
Jason Blevins, The Denver Post
Schedule
At Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen
TODAY
10 a.m.-noon: Women’s snowboard superpipe elimination
2-2:30 p.m.: Snowmobile speed and style seeding
7-7:45 p.m.: Snowmobile speed and style final
7:15-8:30 p.m.: Men’s ski superpipe final
8:30-9 p.m.: Snowboard big air final
FRIDAY
9:30-11 a.m.: Men’s, women’s snowboardcross seeding
10-11:30 a.m.: Women’s snowboard slopestyle elimination
12:30-2 p.m.: Men’s and women’s skicross seeding; 12:30-2 p.m.: Men’s snowboard slopestyle elimination
2-4 p.m.: Mono skicross qualifying
5:30-6:30 p.m.: Women’s ski superpipe final
7:30-8:30 p.m.: Snocross first round
7:45-9 p.m.: Women’s snowboard superpipe final
9-9:30 p.m.: Snowmobile next trick final
