Today the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association announced that the Dew Tour iON Mountain Championships at Breckenridge, CO, held December 12 to 15, will be established as an official Olympic qualifier for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The Dew Tour stop is the fifth qualifying event, joining the four-stop Sprint U.S. Grand Prix which makes stops at Copper Mountain, CO, Northstar, CA, Park City, UT, and Mammoth Mountain, CA, in determining which athletes will be nominated for the United States team that will head to the Olympics in February.

Press Release, Park City, UT, September 19, 2013:

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, CO 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 five competitions will be used to nominate the team 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.

HIGHLIGHTS

• The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association will sanction the Dec. 12-15 Dew Tour iON Mountain Championships at Breckenridge.
• The Breckenridge event will provide the USSA with a vital fifth competition to use for Olympic selection and will showcase top U.S. Snowboarding and U.S. Freeskiing athletes along with an international field.
• The USSA team for Sochi in halfpipe snowboarding, plus the new events of slopestyle skiing and snowboarding along with halfpipe skiing, will be nominated from five events including the Dew Tour and the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix.
• The final freeskiing event is set for Jan. 18 in Park City, UT with the final snowboarding competition the following day at Mammoth Mountain, CA.
• 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 2013 Dew Tour and Sprint U.S. Grand Prix will be broadcast on NBC and NBCSN. Live coverage will also be available with the Dew Tour Live on DewTour.com and Grand Prix with the USSA Network on YouTube.

QUOTES

Jeremy Forster, USSA Freeskiing/Snowboarding Director
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.

Michael Jaquet, USSA Chief Marketing Officer
The Dew Tour partnership will bring greater awareness to our amazing U.S. Freeskiing and U.S. Snowboarding athletes by enhancing broadcast exposure this season especially for our entire Sprint U.S. Grand Prix.

Kenny Mitchell, Dew Tour General Manager
The Dew Tour and USSA partnership makes our event bigger and more significant to the athletes, industry and fans. 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.