After the snowboard cross World Cup originally scheduled for Cortina d'Ampezzo had to be cancelled ten days ago due to the current lack of snow, Local Organisers and FIS Officials agreed on substituting the event by a psl race.
As a result, the famous Italian ski resort will know celebrate its debut as Snowboard World Cup venue by playing host to the alpine snowboard World Cup tour's second stop.
On December 19th, 2015, a parallel slalom will take place under the lights on the Tondi slope (start at 2,240m, finish at 2,123m) which has a similar vertical drop as the world champs course in Lachtal last year.
Coming from a medium steep start section there will be around eight gates in a pretty flat section before the last part of the slope will be medium steep again
Therefore, it will be interesting to see if Radoslav Yankov (BUL), who came from zero to hero last week earning his career's first, will be able to upset the world again.
On the women's side, reigning world champion Ester Ledecka (CZE) will try to keep the momentum from her win at the season's opener.
However, with the most international teams including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Canada, Italy as well as Olympic medallists and married couple Alena Zavarzina and Vic Wild from Russia having been training on the Kreuzbergpass together over the past days, the same strong field is expected to compete at the second consecutive stop in the Dolomites, which are an UNESCO World Nature Heritage.
Nevertheless, the field won't include 2014 Sochi silver medallist Anke Karstens who will sit out this season's first parallel slalom World Cup due to injury.
In addition, two-times Sochi medallist and defending World Cup title champion Zan Kosir will also miss Cortina. The dominating man of the last season, who didn't compete in Carezza, is reported to cure his back problems and hopes to be back next year.
Time schedule
The latest time schedule can be found online: