Yongpyong, South Korea – Yongpyong will celebrate its debut next week as a stop on the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup tour, joining the South Korean ski resort Sungwoo and downtown Seoul where four previous World Cups have been staged in recent years. This Monday through Wednesday, the season’s fourth snowboard cross race and third parallel giant slalom are scheduled at Yongpyong, attracting some of the world’s best boarder crossers and race boarders, including most of the newly crowned World Champions.nThe men’s snowboard cross starting field is set to be led by Austalia’s reigning World Champion, Alex Pullin, who has already reached the World Cup podium twice this season and is aiming for his second World Cup win after having added WCS Gold to his resumé in January. Pullin is currently in a close battle with two other riders for the SBX World Cup title, defending champion Pierre Vaultier of France and Italy’s Luca Matteotti. Vaultier is in the top position with 1,590 points while Pullin, also known as “Chumpy,” sits in second with a total of 1,450 points. Matteotti, who won the season’s second race in Lech, Austria, and also finished fourth at the Worlds in Spain, holds 1,280 points.
On the women’s side, World Cup leader Dominique Maltais of Quebec, Canada, has won three straight snowboardcross races this winter and thus comfortably leads the standings with 3,000 points. Maitais’ Canadian teammate, 2010 Olympic Champion Maelle Ricker, sits in second with 2,200 points, followed by Bulgaria’s Alexandra Jekova with 1,800.
While Pullin and Maltais are on fire in the snowboard cross, Austria’s Benjamin Karl again rode into the spotlight at the last Parallel World Cup races and World Championships following difficulties earlier this season that he overcame to clinch both the PGS and PSL World Championships medals last month in La Molina. By winning the last World Cup competitions held in Telluride, Colo. and Bad Gastein, Austria, Karl has now regained the World Cup lead with 2,910 points.
Karl’s Austrian teammate, Andreas Prommegger, is however only 10 points behind. In addition, South Tyrolean Roland Fischnaller, WCS Bronze medalist in the parallel giant slalom, sits still in striking distance with 2,760 points.
Amongst the women’s carvers, Russia’s Ekaterina Tudegesheva, 23, has a commanding lead with 3,890 points, leading pursuers Fraenzi Maegert-Kohli of Switzerland (3,110) and newly crowned World Champion, Alena Zavarzina of Russia (2,168). Austria’s Claudia Riegler, the oldest racer in the World Cup circuit, is also having an outstanding season with a podium in the night parallel slalom at Bad Gastein to join her silver and bronze performances at the last World Championships.