MADONNA DI CAMPIGLIO, Italy — Always crowd-pleading halfpipe riders took the stage at the FIS Snowboard World Championships Saturday without any Americans in the final act.
No U.S. riders, male or female, survived the first or second qualification rounds in what is usually a strong event for the team. Neither reigning world champ Ricky Bower nor Tricia Byrnes, last year's second-place finisher in the World Cup standings, had the right stuff.
"It was rough," Bower said. "I couldn't put two (good) runs together."
The Park City resident flailed trying to get a hand on his board for a routine air trick in his second attempt to qualify. "Missing a grab is huge," he said, after finishing two spots out of the 10-man final.
Riders are scored on standard maneuvers, height, rotations and overall impression.
Byrnes missed being an automatic qualifier for the six-woman final by one-tenth of a point on her first run. Her poor landing on a spinning aerial trick marred her second attempt.
"We had some good first runs but then the second runs just didn't come through," said U.S. Snowboard Team head coach Peter Foley. "The (halfpipe) walls got a lot harder on the second run and we had hard time making an adjustment."
Riders couldn't get any height or speed in a pipe the U.S. team deemed woefully inadequate for a world championships event.
"That's not really our style. These girls used to riding pretty fast, good pipe and going really big," Foley said.
Workers driving snow tractors, one with a long sickle-shaped arm, didn't start carving out the 100-yard long trough until after last Sunday's opening ceremonies on the same hill, and then scrambled with picks and shovels to get it into shape. Three days of snow and rain also hampered their efforts.
Meantime, riders had virtually no practice time, and qualification rounds were delayed and postponed. Some U.S. riders made a trip to nearby Venice because they had nothing to do. Foley said the halfpipe should have been in place at long before the teams arrived.
"These should be the best pipes in the world," said U.S. rider Zach Horwitz.
He blasted the International Ski Federation's (FIS) organization of the event saying, "It could have been a lot better, 300 times better."
Lest anyone call it sour grapes, Saturday's winners, too, weren't pleased about the halfpipe taking a back seat to the opening ceremonies.
Men's gold medalist Kim Christiansen of Norway said it in some ways "ruined" the contest. His teammate, Daniel Franck and runner-up Saturday, agreed.
"I thought the world championships would be more prestigious," said the 1998 Olympics silver medalist.
Nevertheless, riders applauded workers for making the halfpipe as rideable as possible despite heavy snowfall Saturday.
"I really believe that we had somewhat of a miracle here from what we had here two days ago," said Ted Martin, FIS race director.
He did agree it was a mistake not start digging the channel of snow earlier in the month. "For sure, we need longer than two days to build a halfpipe. But at the end of the story here we had a good pipe and a good event."
Halfpipe results
MEN
1. Kim Christansen, Norway 45.0
2. Daniel Franck, Norway 40.1
3. Markus Hurme, Finland 39.5
4. Xaver Hoffman, Germany 39.5
5. Iker Fernandez, Spain 39.4
6. Jan Michaelis, Germany 38.5
7. Magnus Sterner, Sweden 36.8
8. Guillaume Morisset, Canada 36.5
9. Daniel Nordin, Sweden 36.4
10. Brett Carpentier, Canada 33.2
WOMEN
1. Doriane Vidal, France 40.4
2. Stine Brune Kjeldaas, Norway 38.0
3. Sari Groenholm, Finland 37.1
4. Fabienne Reuteler, Switzerland 33.9
5. Minna Hesso, Finland 31.6
6. Lori Glazier, Canada 29.3
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