Over a foot and a half of fresh snow forced FIS officials to call the second halfpipe World Cup of the season. The decision was made on location at 5:45 a.m. as blizzard conditions continued to pound the Vorab glacier.

Following a week of training with the Swedish team and two Continental Cup races at Copper Mountain, Colo., the U.S. alpine riders return to World Cup action Dec. 4 with a parallel giant slalom in Tandadalen (Sweden).

Heading the U.S. contingent of five men and four women are Adam Smith (Tangent, OR), who already has one World Cup victory this year, and Rosey Fletcher (Girdwood, AK), who won last season's parallel slalom in Sweden.

Also representing the U.S. is Õ02 Olympic bronze medalist Chris Klug (Aspen, CO), fresh off a Continental Cup win over the reigning Olympic silver medalist Richard Rikardsson of Sweden, along with Õ03 Grand Prix champ Pete Thorndike (Meredith, NH), Ryan McDonald (Entiat, WA) and new addition to the U.S. B team Eric Warren (Bennington, VT).

Joining Fletcher is two-time Olympian Lisa Kosglow (Boulder, CO), Stacia Hookom (Edwards, CO) and Michele Gorgone (Sudbury, MA), who notched her first major career win with a Continental Cup PGS victory at Copper Mountain.

"All World Cup races are important, but Tandadalen is always a big one for us," said Head Alpine Coach Nick Smith. "It's a great hill and we've always performed well at this event. Following Chile and Landgraaf, we've got some good results and at this event I'd like to back those up."

Tandadalen kicks off a busy December for the U.S. riders, who return to North America for a Canadian World Cup stops at Whistler and Stoneham, with the Chevy Truck U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix at Park City, Utah, sandwiched in between. All before the Christmas holiday.

"It's tough to head all the way to Sweden for one race and then turn right around, but this is winter, that's what we do and this team is hungry to compete. I'm looking forward to a great month of snowboarding packed full of equally good results," said Smith.

— Courtesy, US Snowboard Team