Blue bird conditions marked the first day of the Chevy Truck U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix as Peter Thorndike (Meredith, NH) and Lisa Kosglow (Boulder, CO) topped an all American PGS final on the Park City Mountain Resort '02 Olympic PGS course.

The U.S. team stood three deep on both sides of the podium as Ryan McDonald (Entiat, WA) and Eric Warren (Bennington, VT) went 2-3 for the men, while Rosey Fletcher (Girdwood, AK) and Stacia Hookom (Edwards, CO) rounded out the women's side.

"I never felt better to be at the bottom of a dog pile," said Thorndike, who was mobbed by teammates and friends in the finish area. "Even if I had to get snow if my face, today was huge for me as we roll into World Championships next month."

For Kosglow, the win marked a similar accomplishment. "My goals this season are very simple, to win the World Championships and to win at least one Grand Prix. So I guess it's one down and one to go, but it was a tough win, said Kosglow."

Solid snow conditions held throughout the afternoon on both courses, but the day was not without a few spills as '02 bronze medalist Chris Klug (Aspen, CO) sketched off course a few times settling for 4th. On the women's side, Fletcher was two gates shy of victory when she slid out opening the door for Kosglow.

"I just crossed the line and raised my hands in disbelief," Kosglow said. "Rosey was ahead of me by a good enough margin and it was tough to watch her go down, but I'm still excited that I won. She's one of my teammates, but a win is a win - we all go down at one time or another."

A brutal fall in the quarterfinal nearly knocked McDonald out for the day as Adam Smith (Bend, OR) flew off course sweeping McDonald off his feet and slamming him to his back. McDonald took automatic advantage as they swapped courses and powered through the pain to move on.

"I'm real lucky," said McDonald. "When you have two guys who are 200 plus pounds colliding, it could have been a lot worse. I just pushed through the pain and charged - we're all in the hunt to make the World Championship team, unfortunately for me Pete was riding really strong all day."

The Chevy Truck U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix continues Friday with the halfpipe qualifiers kicking off at 8:00 a.m. A floodlit finals is set for later that evening headlined by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The event will air Saturday during primetime on NBC (10 p.m. EST, 9 p.m. MST).

— Courtesy, U.S. Snowboarding Team