TELLURIDE — From early-era boot packers to inventive modern halfpipe and slopestyle riders, the individuality and independence of snowboarding have long served as hallmarks of the sport.
Even after achieving Olympic status in 1998, some top riders refused to represent their nations and others balked at the notion of wearing identical uniforms. You could argue that snowboarding put the “I” in “team.”
But as the sport evolves, those traits are slowly being bred out of its lineage. Riders line up to wear the national colors nowadays, and team camaraderie and group hugs are commonplace at competitions.
Never has the new attitude been more evident than at Sunday’s Team Snowboardcross (SBX) exhibition event hosted in Telluride by U.S. Snowboarding. With little more than national pride, and a few thousand dollars, on the line, teams of two riders representing the U.S., Canada, France, Switzerland, Russia and several other countries crashed down the Telluride ‘cross course in a relay race that U.S. Snowboarding representatives hope to see added to the Olympic lineup as soon as Sochi 2014.
“You see the excitement of the athletes supporting their teammates. That’s nations, and it’s just a different format for snowboarding that I think could be really successful in the long term,” U.S. Snowboarding director Jeremy Forster said. “We have high hopes to see it in the world championships and the Olympics.”
In the team SBX format, national teams of two race each other in what amounts to an electronic relay. Four competing racers go down the course at once, and as the riders cross the finish line a sensor triggers the start gate of the teammate waiting at the top of the course. The winning team is determined after the second rider crosses the finish line.
On Sunday, that team was made up of Americans Lindsey Jacobellis and Faye Gulini in the women’s event. After Olympic silver medalist Jacobellis got out to an early lead, 17-year-old newcomer Gulini held off a strong Canadian team of Olympians Maelle Ricker and Dominique Maltais.
“This is a very individual sport, so whenever we get to change up the playing field a little bit and play as a team, it’s really fun,” Jacobellis said. “I was down here pulling out my hair watching Faye ride. It was so amazing just to see her develop as a rider at such a young age.”
Gulini, meanwhile, could appreciate the support of an experienced teammate considered among the most dominant racers in the world.
“I have a weaker (start) pull, so having Lindsey go first to give me that hole shot definitely helped,” Gulini said. “Without that I don’t know if we could have done it. That’s definitely what put us out ahead. She gets the early lead, and I got the course from there.”
Of course, there is the potential for the relay format to backfire, as was the case when American Ross Powers took a commanding lead in the semifinal round of the men’s race, only to watch it disappear when teammate Graham Watanabe stumbled in the anchor leg.
“Ross had everything laid out for me. Unfortunately, I got a little too jazzed in the start and made an early move over a tall roller — but it was too early, and I got bucked off balance,” Watanabe said. “That was the first time I tried this event as the second rider out of the gate, so it was a different experience for me. I loved every second of it, but I learned a lot from it too.”
The team of Nate Holland and Nick Baumgartner finished as the top American men, placing second behind the French team of Xavier De Le Rue and Pierre Vaul-tier.
“It’s a different bond you get when you start to rely on each other,” Baumgartner said. “He’s my biggest fan when I go out of the gate, and when I finish down here I’m screaming for him. It makes you closer, tighter, and makes for great racing.”
While teammates attempt to apply individual riding styles to maximize speed in the two-lap races, a bigger-picture strategy is clearly being applied by the American-invented sport’s governing body — U.S. Snowboarding — in an effort to increase potential medal opportunities at the Olympics.
In addition to team SBX, U.S. officials are presenting snowboard slopestyle and halfpipe skiing as their top freestyle candidates for expanded medal events in 2014. Team SBX and halfpipe skiing have the advantage of using venues already built for other competitions, while snowboarding contests in general have been among the top draw for television audiences in recent Olympics.
“They all have their own identity and their own reasons for being successful long term. We’re going to keep trying to push them all and we’ll see where we end up,” Forster said. “This is the only team SBX race on the World Cup calendar this year, but hopefully it’s a good example to the other World Cup organizers and they’ll pick it up and we’ll keep growing it in the future.”
