SALT LAKE CITY — American snowboarder Kevin Pearce was in critical Saturday at a Utah hospital after suffering a "severe, traumatic brain injury" in a training accident, one of his doctors said.
Pearce is in the University of Utah Hospital's intensive care unit in Salt Lake City. Dr. Holly Ledyard said Pearce is stable condition and has not yet needed to undergo surgery.
"Kevin sustained a severe, traumatic brain injury ... (and) is being kept sedated," Ledyard said in a statement released by the snowboarder's publicist. "The focus over the next week will be watching for any swelling in his brain and keeping his brain pressure normal."
Pearce was preparing for next week's Olympic qualifying events at Mammoth Mountain, Calif., when he hit his head during a training run Thursday in Park City.
"Kevin has a long recovery ahead of him," Ledyard said.
According to an update Saturday afternoon on a Facebook page set up by his family, Pearce was "doing well, he continues to maintain his stable condition. Being young, healthy and strong is working in his favor."
"Family and friends remain positive and are thankful for the outpouring of support," said Pearce's spokeswoman Danielle Burch.
The 22-year-old from Norwich, Vt., is a top-ranked halfpipe rider. Along with Shaun White, he is considered to be one of America's top athletes in a sport dominated by the United States.
Olympic halfpipes are essentially hollowed out ice shells, the sides of which rise up to 22 feet in the air. Riders gain speed as they go from one side to another and fly several feet over the edges, where they flip and spin, often rotating 720 or 1080 degrees on a single jump.
Pearce was in the process of completing a twisting double back flip when he caught his toe-side edge while landing, Burch said. He was wearing a helmet.
Three weeks ago, Pearce fell during a preliminary run at an Olympic qualifying event in Copper Mountain, Colo., and suffered a concussion.
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LUGE: At Koenigssee, Germany, Tatjana Huefner secured her 20th career victory on Saturday as Germans filled the top four places in a luge World Cup race and Erin Hamlin finished fifth to lead the U.S. to its best showing of the season.
Huefner clocked the fastest time in both runs Saturday to earn her fourth victory of the season in a combined time of 1 minute, 35.324 seconds. Natalie Geisenberger was second in 1:35.550 and Steffi Sieger finished third in 1:35.867.
Anke Wischnewski completed Germany's dominance.
Hamlin, of Remsen, N.Y., finished in 1:36.304 and Julia Clukey of Augusta, Maine, was seventh in 1:36.546.
CROSS COUNTRY: At Anchorage, Alaska, Olympian Kikkan Randall led from start to finish to claim the gold medal Saturday in the women's freestyle sprint, the first of four events in the 2010 U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships.
Simi Hamilton, who competed last season for Middlebury College, won the men's event, edging Mike Hinckley, who trains with Alaska Pacific University.
Randall, skiing on her hometown course at Anchorage's Kincaid Park, edged Rebecca Dussault, an eight-time national champion. Laura Valaas was third.
In the men's event, Hamilton caught and passed Hinckley on the final approach to the finish line, a winding curve that leads to a straightaway in the stadium. Hamilton's time on the 1.7-kilometer course was 2:53.8. Garrott Kuzzy finished third.
CROSS COUNTRY: At Oberhof, Germany, Petter Northug of Norway has edged Maxim Vylegzhanin of Russia by one-tenth of a second to win the 15-kilometer classical cross country race at the Tour de Ski.
Northug finished in 47 minutes, 7.08 seconds to extend his overall World Cup lead on Saturday and took the lead in the tour standings. Matti Heikkinen of Finland was third in 47:08.6.
The Tour de Ski consists of eight races in 10 days in Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic.
NORDIC COMBINED: At Oberhof, Germany, Hannu Manninen of Finland has earned his second Nordic combined World Cup victory of the season and Johnny Spillane of the U.S. was fourth.
Manninen came from behind on Saturday to cross the line first in the 10-kilometer cross-country race after placing eighth in the ski jumping portion. The Finn clocked 27 minutes, 38.6 seconds to edge Felix Gottwald of Austria by 1.1 seconds.
World Cup leader Jason Lamy-Chappuis of France, who had the longest jump, was 2.4 seconds back in third place. Spillane, of Steamboat Springs, Colo., was 6.8 seconds behind Manninen.
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