Seth Wescott has high hopes as one of the stars who will introduce to the world Thursday what some predict will become one of the most exciting sports in the Winter Olympics.
Snowboard cross is not for the faint of heart. It involves racing downhill in groups of four faster than 40 m.p.h., in extremely close quarters on what resembles a snow-covered motocross track turned on its edge, enabling gravity to provide the horsepower.
Some of the jumps will fling competitors 50 feet down the mountain. Top finishers will cover the 3,000-foot course in about 90 seconds, their lungs and leg muscles protesting all the while.
The carnage factor can be significant. Human contact is unavoidable. Crashes will occur.
Wescott, 29, is one of four U.S. entries in the 38-man field and, along with Nate Holland, is a strong contender for the gold.
But there’s more at stake, they say. The real winner–or loser–could be the sport itself.
Referred to as boardercross in the U.S., this racing discipline enjoyed a healthy following from the mid-1990s until about 2002. The Friday night boardercross series was a staple at resorts across the country. But as terrain parks with halfpipes, jumps and rail features began to sprout, boardercross declined.
These days the sport exists almost exclusively on the International Skiing Federation circuit, which includes World Cup competitions, and at the annual X Games.
The U.S. team is hoping that a good performance will spark a revival, much in the way the medals sweep by the U.S. men’s halfpipe team in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games increased interest in that discipline.
“What we’re bringing into the Olympics this year with the new discipline is the opportunity to put something out there for the American public and everyone will get it,” said Wescott, the 2005 world champion. “With halfpipe, the average person watching doesn’t necessarily understand the intricacies of tricks and style factor.
“Our nation, [which] loves NASCAR and loves motorsports, [is] going to see head-to-head racing, and it’s going to be a live and exciting show. So I think it’s really going to do well as far as viewership in the States is concerned, and it will put [racing] back on the map.”
Then again, it may not. Kids these days arrive at resorts with their parents and are promptly excused to spend the day in terrain parks, where snowboarding has essentially evolved into skateboarding on snow.
If they’re not zipping up and down the walls of the halfpipe, they’re leaping onto and sliding across rails and performing tricks off jumps called kickers. From this phenomenon was born slopestyle competitions, where riders are judged for execution of routines, as athletes are during halfpipe contests.
Because of slopestyle’s growing popularity, and because it is an aesthetic pursuit that plays well before television cameras, many believe it will eventually become an Olympic sport.
Downhill racing on snowboards, meanwhile, has become such an afterthought among young riders that some snowboard companies have discontinued their lines of alpine boards.
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“It’s disappointing to look at the huge move toward urban snowboarding,” said Wescott, who competed in halfpipe, big-air and even slopestyle contests before returning to what he calls a purer means of riding.
“It gets away from the roots and soul of the sport. To me, the sport originated in the powder in the mountains.”
Holland, winner of the snowboard cross two weeks ago at the Winter X Games, says U.S. and international riders have discussed breaking away from the ski federation and organizing a pro tour on what Holland calls “punk-rock courses” designed to be more challenging and fun for spectators.
Cross riders see the Olympics, however, as an important first step. It works to their advantage, Holland said, to follow the halfpipe competition, in which four of the six medals went to U.S. men and women.
“They drew large crowds and lots of attention,” Holland said. “Now that snowboarders have the public’s eye, we’re going to come out and give them full action-packed racing over a gnarly course.”