NEWS RELEASES - 2006 | 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SKINNY SKIS GET THEIR DUE WITH FIRST EVER NORDIC EVENT AT TELUS WORLD SKI AND SNOWBOARD FESTIVAL

Festival announces new XCX

WHISTLER, BC , March 27 2007 –

All the tribes of mountain sports gather each April at the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival, an end-of-season homage to all that is core in snow-sliding.

Joining the big mountain rippers, the riders, the jibbers, the spring slush lovers, the freeheelers for the first time this year will be the skinny-planked loppeteers, with the inaugural Cross Country Cross (XCX).

The race, set to take place on Sunday April 15 with K’Naan and Stephen Marley ruling the outdoor concert stage, will be a lung-scorching, face-planting, elbows-out spectacle, morphing lycra-suited speedsters into Gladiators.

Commencing with a grueling hillsprint from the base of Whistler, the fittest Nordic athletes will make a dash through the qualifying round, of 75m straight up. Half the pack will be eliminated in the initial assault.

Those that show they know how to explode out of the starting gate, and have the lungs to follow through, will graduate to the next round.

Here, 4 racers at a time will chase the hillsprint with a two-lap blast through a downhill skiercross inspired course into the Skiers Plaza.  The course, which will wrap around “the Kick in the Head”, or the bottom three pylons of the Fitzsimmons Chair, will create a crowd-pleasing spectacle.

“We’re stoked to finally be able to incorporate a Nordic event into the Festival, especially in a way that’s going to be so spectator-friendly,” said Festival Managing Director Sue Eckersley.

Not to mention spectator-fatiguing. The winning racers will be crowned Nordic Gladiator, having completed more than half a kilometre in hillsprints, and outlasted their competitors in 6 laps in the skiercross.  Bound to give you a headrush, just watching it.


The TELUS World Ski & Snowboard Festival is produced by Watermark Communications, a Whistler sports & entertainment marketing company, and presented in partnership with Tourism Whistler and Whistler Blackcomb. Founded by W1’s Doug Perry twelve years ago, and now the largest annual winter sports and music festival in North America, the TELUS World Ski & Snowboard Festival is a high-octane 10 day and night showcase of the best of snowsports, music, arts and mountain life.  Featuring major professional ski and snowboarding competitions, the largest free outdoor concert series in Canada, the legendary Pro Photographer and Filmmaker Showdowns, and many more unique art and cultural showcases, the Festival is the ultimate wrap party.  For information on the 2007 TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival , this year from April 13-22, visit whistler2007.com

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Lisa Richardson
Communications Manager
Tel: 604 938 3399 x21
Email: lrichardson@watermarkinc.ca