The world’s most elite snowboarders are at Copper Mountain this week for the first stop of the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix tour. The snowboarders will compete in halfpipe and in big air.

With a ton of fresh snow falling at Copper Mountain over the last week, the 22-foot Main Vein Superpipe is open and ready for action from the top snowboarders in the world. The big air jump, built adjacent to the Main Vein halfpipe at Copper’s Centre Village, will serve as the first non-scaffolding big air venue featured on the World Cup circuit since Valmalenco, Italy in 2008.

In the halfpipe, watch for competitive performances from Olympic gold medalists Kelly Clark (West Dover, VT) and Shaun White (Carlsbad, CA). However, the seasoned veterans will have to contend with up-and-comers who are hungry for their time at the top of the podium. In women’s halfpipe keep an eye out for Chloe Kim (La Palma, CA), who made history at the Park City Grand Prix in February when she landed back-to-back 1080s and received a perfect score. On the men’s side, White may see his greatest competition from 2014 Olympic gold medalist Iouri Podlatchikov of Switzerland, but he will also have to watch out for Americans like the brother duo of Ben and Gabe Ferguson (Bend, OR) and two-time X Games gold medalist Danny Davis (Highland, MI).

Olympic gold medalist Jamie Anderson (South Lake Tahoe, CA) will take to the big air jump, where she will be a heavy favorite after a win at the Winter Dew Tour last weekend. Also coming in hot for the women is 16-year-old Hailey Langland (San Clemente, CA) who placed just behind Anderson in second at the Dew Tour and Julia Marino, who won last season’s Big Air at Fenway and was second at November’s Olympic test event in Korea. The American men are a deeply talented squad, including: Chas Guldemond (Reno, NV), who is fresh off a fourth-place finish at the Winter Dew Tour; Kyle Mack (West Bloomfield, MI), who is the reigning Burton US Open slopestyle champion; Chris Corning (Silverthorne, CO), who was the overall FIS slopestyle champion in 2016 and Eric Willett (Breckenridge, CO), who won the Park City slopestyle event in February.

The event will offer riders valuable points towards the FIS rankings, as well as the World Snowboard Tour (WST) rankings. Both events will be broadcast on NBC, along with live streaming of the finals on nbcsports.com.

EVENT SCHEDULE

Wed. Dec. 14 – Halfpipe Snowboarding Qualifiers
Thurs. Dec. 15 – Big Air Snowboarding Qualifiers (men)
Fri. Dec. 16 – Big Air Snowboarding Qualifiers (women)
Fri. Dec. 16 – Halfpipe Snowboarding Finals
Sat. Dec. 17 – Big Air Snowboarding Finals

2016-17 TOYOTA U.S. GRAND PRIX BROADCAST SCHEDULE 
(Schedule subject to change)
*live streaming is available on nbcsports.com/live or via the NBC Sports App

Live Streaming
Fri. Dec. 16 – 1:00 p.m. – Halfpipe Snowboarding
Sat. Dec. 17 – 11:30 a.m. – Halfpipe Skiing

Broadcast
Sat. Dec. 17 – 2:30 p.m. – NBC – Big Air Snowboarding (Team USA Winter Champions Series)
Sun. Dec. 18 – 2:00 p.m. – NBC – Halfpipe Snowboarding
Sun. Dec. 18 – 3:00 p.m. – NBC – Halfpipe Skiing