Making The U.S. Snowboarding Team
The pipeline to making the U.S. Snowboarding Team begins with young riders competing at regional competitions across the country. Riders can compete as individuals or often as part of a local club organization or team. Most regional competition series are sanctioned by the United States of America Snowboard Association (USASA).
From local series events, freestyle riders make the jump to the Revolution Tour for halfpipe, snowboard cross and slopestyle. This five-stop series, created by U.S. Snowboarding, stops in the West, Midwest and East Coast throughout the winter. Overall championships are awarded for each discipline and top riders from the series earn invitations to compete in the Sprint U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix Series. The Revolution Tour is open to all riders 13 and older for halfpipe and slopestyle events and 15 and older for snowboard cross events.
The U.S. Snowboarding Race to the Cup is the national competition series for alpine riders. With three stops across the U.S. each winter, riders compete in both parallel giant slalom and parallel slalom with an overall tour winner named at the end of the season for each discipline.
Based on results from these and other national competitions, riders earn points through a specified criteria toward qualifying for the U.S. Snowboarding Team. Each spring, riders are then nominated to the Team and given an invitation to join.
U.S. Snowboarding names Team riders for halfpipe and snowboard cross. The Team is named annually, usually in mid summer. The USSA is one of the only Olympic sports in America to support a full-time standing national team in every sport. These athletes compete as a Team in major national competitions like the Chevrolet U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix, X Games, Vans Cup, US Open among others, as well as World Cup competitions. Teams for FIS World Championships (held every odd year) and Olympic Winter Games (held every four years) are selected by specific criteria and named for those individual events.
Additionally, top riders from both the Revolution Tour and Race to the Cup series receive invitations to train with U.S. Snowboarding as part of the Project Gold Team during a summer camp held each year at Mt. Hood, Oregon. This does not serve as an automatic invitation to join the U.S. Snowboarding Team, rather it gives coaches a chance to work directly with the nation's top up-and-coming riders. BMP
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