Dear French Alps enthusiastics ,

As you already know, the Winter X Games will land

in Europe for the very first time ! YAY ! Moreover, the event will be

hosted by a great resort called Tignes, located in the Northern French Alps. The

competition will last 3 days, from March 10th to 12th 2010. The best skiers

will gather from all around the world to compete.

Why Tignes ?

First, it’s the sportiest & the most cosmopolitan European ski resort. This

choice was also made in recognition of being at the forefront of action &

freestyle winter sports, bearing in mind its solid experience in the

organisation of international snow sports events - like the "Ski bikini

contest" …

…or more seriously

the "Tignes airwaves" (n°1 European snowsports event till now - it’s gonna be

replaced by the X games). Let’s add that Tignes, which is linked to Val

d’Isère, is part of the espace killy, one of the biggest ski areas in the world.

Last but not least, the landscape is stunning.

Tignes in a nutshell :

The skiable area comprises 300Km (187 miles) of ski

runs located at altitudes ranging between 1,550m (5,086 ft) & 3,450m (11,320

ft), at varying levels of difficulty:

·  23 green runs  -  66 blue

runs  -  40 red runs  -  27 black runs

 In addition to these runs,

explore:

·  6 slalom courses  -  1 mogul

field  -  2 snowparks  -  1 gliss’park

Tignes’ ski resort welcomes you in summertime too,

where you can go from freeriding to MTB downhill trails, golf or spa therapy...

The Grande Motte glacier is open from June to August & the snowpark moves

to higher ground in the glacier.

Programme :

For this first European edition, the Winter X Games

have scheduled 9 events: the Men and Women’s Super Pipe Ski & Snowboard -

the Men and Women’s Slopestyle Ski & Snowboard - freestyle Snowmobile.

Athletes:

- SuperPipe Man – 16 places (5 selections to

this day)

Xavier Bertoni (FRA) - Simon Dumont (USA) - Justin

Dorey (CAN) - Mike Riddle (CAN) - Kevin Rolland (FRA)

- SuperPipe Woman – 16 places (4 selections

to this day)

Sarah Burke (USA) - Kaya Turski (CAN) - Anna Segal

(AUS) - Grete Eliasson (USA)

- Slopestyle Man – 16 places (6 selections to

this day)

Tom Wallisch (USA) - Henrik Harlaut (SWE) - TJ

Schiller (CAN) - PK Hunder (NOR) - Sammy Carlson (CAN) - Jacob Wester (SWE)

- Slopestyle Woman – 8 places (2 selections

to this day)

Jen Hudak (USA) - Virginie Faivre (SUI)

Organizers:

European Winter X Games are a Canal+ Events &

ESPN co-production. They began their collaboration in June 2009. ESPN is

guarantor for the sports side of the event ; Canal+ Events will be

managing the Winter X Games Europe and providing all its expertise in events,

marketing and TV production to mobilize the CANAL+ channels around the

competition.

Partners:

- Main Partners: Coca Cola zero & SFR

- Official partners: Quiksilver & Oakley

- Official supplier: CoreUpt

- Media Partners: Fun radio - Deezer -

Canal+

Infrastructures:

The Americans Franck Wells & Chris Gunnerson

are the ones who are gonna shape the superpipe and the Slopestyle runs for the

European X Games. Gunnerson and his company build the Aspen X Games slopestyle

runs anually.

SuperPipe :

The SuperPipe is an oversized half-pipe. It will

have the exact same dimensions as the one in Aspen: 220m (722 ft) long, 18m (60

ft) wide, 6m (20 ft) high - compared with a length of 120m (394 ft) & 4m (13

ft) high walls for a standard pipe -

Like Aspen, the Tignes SuperPipe will be open to

the public at the start of the season, will then close from mid-February 2010,

to form the king size dimensions required to meet X Games standards. Following

the event, the SuperPipe will return to its "standard" dimensions to

reopening to the public.To create the necessary infrastructures, the Tignes

pistes service began work on an immense scale in July 2009.

SlopeStyle :

The Slopestyle will be situated on the "Double

M" piste that runs alongside the Lanches chairlift in Tignes Val Claret.

The Tignes course will be traced over a length of 600m (1968 ft)with a 190m

(623 ft) rise. It will be scattered with 8 gigantic snow modules (big air,

table top etc.) and artificial modules (4 rails), including one 12m (40

ft) long.

 Last but not least:

- I hope you’ve learned new stuff about the

competition & the resort

- Please, if you have any question about this

article, don’t hesitate to ask it on the forum

- Sorry for my English ! What can I do… I’m

French  :)