FREESKIING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Barnhill and Selig Win Qualifers

Alyeska, Alaska, April 10, 2008—Alaskan blue skies shined over the rugged and powder-blanketed Chugach Mountain Range this morning as the qualifying round of the Subaru Freeskiing World Championships kicked off at Alyeska Resort. In total, 11 women and 71 men headed up to the top of Alyeska’s North Face in hopes of joining the 50 or so pre-qualified World Tour athletes in the main event which begins tomorrow. The Subaru Freeskiing World Championships is the third and final stop of the Freeskiing World Tour as well as the sixth and final stop of the Subaru U.S. Freeskiing Series.

Rebecca Selig of Timber Ridge, MI, smoothly executed an impressive cliff drop and ended her run with a long chain of technically perfect turns down the North Face to lead the women’s qualifying field with a score of 38.88. Squaw Valley, California’s Quincy Young qualified second with 29.38 points, and Phillipa Hunt of Crested Butte, CO, rounded out the top three women with 29.25 points.

Alyeska local Cody Barnhill used his knowledge of the terrain to his advantage, tearing up the venue with a series of slashing airplane turns and impressive cliff drops. He qualified first today with 36.50 points, outdoing runner-up Jake Young, also from Alyeska who finished second with 36.25. Third place went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming’s Rob LaPier, who earned 36.13 points.

The first day of the World Tour “main event” begins tomorrow as big mountain freeskiers from around the globe push their limits for a crack at the 2008 Subaru US Freeskiing Series and Freeskiing World Tour overall titles. The final and super final rounds will take place on the infamous Headwall area of Alyeska.

Mountain Sports International will present live a live webcast of the Subaru Freeskiing World Championships, beginning at 11:30am AKST (3:30pm EST) on Friday, April 11. Be sure to visit the newly redesigned and recently re-launched www.usfreeskiing.com, which features state of the art video and photo player technology. The daily uploads of video, photos, news and results of each day’s competition action will be available after each day concludes. Additionally, the full webcast can also be viewed by logging onto www.powder.com, www.backcountry.com, www.biglines.com, www.newschoolers.com.

Special thanks to our sponsors: Subaru of America
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