NZsnowboard.com

5th August 2008

 Japanese and Korean snowboarders dominated yesterdays Steelworx Snowboard Series racing at Mt Hutt taking all the top spots in the fun hard and soft boot snowboard series.  

Moon Seong-Gwon shows great form as he races to a 9th placing in the hardboot section.

Race coordinator Richard Murphy said heaps of soft powder made for a fun day, but difficult racing conditions in the second race of the Monday series.

The clouds parted allowing a brief blast of sunlight through for the duration of the race.  

He said the competition in the series was heating up with 35 racers lining out across the hard and soft boot disciplines.

We saw an outstanding performance from Gang Hye Yon in the amateur women's hardboot race.  She outpaced all of the pro women and her combined time (1:14.14) over both courses was more than three seconds faster then the winner of the pro women's hardboot and 12 seconds faster than the closest amateur, Suzuka (1:26.96).

By contrast the competition was incredibly close in the in the men's pro hardboot with only 8 hundreths of a second separating the winner and 2nd place getters Hicleaki Kuclo (59.69) and  Park Ho Yong (59.77). T

The amateur hardboot section was won by Hong Jong Hyeon (1:14.40), beating Yoon Yeo Wan (1:16.49). The amateur men's softboot was close too, with Kofuken (1:32.46) marginally faster than youngster Rogu (1:32.79).

The snowboard race series is sponsored by Steelworx Bar and Big Al's Snowhop, both local Methven businesses.  

This series really is a fantastic opportunity for some energetic fun with your mates.  Next week Id love to see a wider spread of nationalities have a go at shaking the Asian domination of this race style, said Mr Murphy.

The next race is on Monday, 11th August so make sure youre there for signup!


For more information, www.nzski.com or contact Richard Murphy on (027) 246 8348




LINK:   www.nzski.com