Canyons hosts Sprint U.S. Snowboarding and Freeskiing Grand Prix

This week Utahns as well as visitors to our great state have a special opportunity to see one of snow sports most exciting events, The Sprint Grand Prix tour featuring men's and women's Skicross and Boardercross at Canyons Resort of Park City. If you are unfamiliar with Ski and Boardercross just picture a pack of racers screaming down the hill while navigating an extremely challenging course of berms, step ups, step downs , gaps, and booters with the first one to the bottom declared the winner. When you take the already thrilling speed, height, and distance of world class athletes and toss in the group factor you are sure to have one amazing event. Initial practices and qualifiers for all disciplines concluded Wednesday with finalists practice Thursday. Final events for Skicross are taking place Friday March 1st and Snowboarding finals take place on Saturday the 2nd. The best thing about this event is that it is free to the public and the finish line action can be easily enjoyed from The Canyons ski beach at the base of the mountain in the resort's ski village. There is also access to the upper course area from Doc's Run (lift ticket required). The finals will be broadcast on NBC Sports over the next two Sundays, but why wait for the tape when you can experience it all live this weekend. Following Saturdays events there will be a free live performance from Reggae band Patwa. I went up to The Canyons on Wednesday to check out the course and it is quite a monster as you can see from the enclosed pictures. Below is the itinerary for the Friday and Saturday festivities.

Friday, March 1