Olympic quest at Mt. Bachelor

BEND, Ore. – As Turin looms, the quest for a spot on the U.S. Olympic snowboarding team has come to Mount Bachelor.

Qualifying and practice for the U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix started Thursday, with finals in the halfpipe competition scheduled for today and the slopestyle finals on Sunday.

While slopestyle is a non-Olympic event, top halfpipe competitors could earn consideration for a spot on the U.S. team, which will be selected early next month the final Grand Prix stop at Mountain Creek, N.J.

The purse at Mount Bachelor is $10,000 apiece to the men’s and women’s winners. Some 150 athletes are competing.

The United States will field at least three men and three women in the halfpipe at Bardonecchi for the winter games Feb. 10-26 in Turin, Italy.

Americans swept the men’s competition in 2002, led by Ross Powers, silver medalist Danny Kass and bronze medalist Jarret Thomas. Kelly Clark won gold on the women’s side.

“It was huge for the mainstream part of our sport, getting a following,” Kass said.

“We didn’t even know what we’d done. We all just thought, ‘Wow, we did so good.’ So it was, like, people telling us we had made history and us being pretty clueless.”

Snowboarding made its debut in Nagano in 1998. Snowboardcross and parallel giant slalom join the halfpipe as Olympic events.

Clark was 18 and just out of high school when she made the 2002 U.S. Olympic Team, and she was the youngest member.

Now, she wants to return.

Clark was injured during warmups for the first Grand Prix tour stop in Breckenridge, Colo., last month and did not compete.

Hannah Teter and Shaun White won in the halfpipe competition in Breckenridge.

After the Mount Bachelor competition, 20 men and 10 women will be chosen to go on to the final Olympic qualifying event at Mountain Creek Jan. 20-21.

The entire U.S. team of 16 riders will be announced on Jan. 21.