VENUE DESCRIPTION

The resort of Bardonecchia has a long and unique history of winter sports stretching back to the first few years of the 20th century  when the first skiers realized that the mountains of Bardonecchia were ideal for the new sport. In 1909 the first Italian skiing championships were held here and the big ski jump “Smith” was built and named after the two Norwegian brothers, Harald e Trigwe Smith, who set a new world record with their jumps of 43 and 40 metres respectively!

In 1935 the first ski lift was built, known as the Colomion “slittovia”- a kind of sledge lift where skiers sat as they were transported up the mountain - and the newspapers of the day wrote regularly about the “skiing competitions” and “snow days” in the resort.

Nowadays the resort has about 100 km of prepared runs and 35 of them are equipped with snow cannons. There are 21 ski lifts that can carry 30,000 people per hour up to the slopes with their numerous bars and restaurants. There’s a range of ski hire shops, 4 ski schools, free parking, first aid facilities, a railway station and a covered swimming pool.

In recent years, Bardonecchia has hosted and continues to host a whole range of high profile sporting events including the 2006 Winter Olympics of Torino, the Universiadi 2007 as well as several World Cup snowboard competitions.

Besides parallel and snowboard cross events, the latest competition history is mainly dedicated to freestyle snowboarding. In February 2009, the first ever slopestyle event was scheduled but had to be cancelled due to heavy snow fall. In 2011, had better luck with the weather and staged a high class event in slopestyle as well as in the halfpipe.

In the 2012 season, it's time for another double event - so watch out for tricks, spins and style in the Bardonecchia Snowpark:

Bardonecchia Snowpark is situated in the area of Melezet and has a 4-seater chairlift. The park has a vertical drop of 1100 metres and is made up of a number of dedicated areas including one for jumps and artificial structures and another area which houses  the Olympic Halfpipe.

The snowpark has been designed to provide for different needs and different levels of snowboarders: from professional riders to first-timers. Within the park itself there are a range of structures differing in size and dimension.

The Bardonecchia Snowpark is divided up according to the difficulty of the structures:

RED PARK medium-pro area for more demanding riders.
BLUE PARK beginner area, appropriate for riders with little experience.

The quantity and variety of rails and boxes is unique in Italy – there are traditional boxes, wallrides, c-boxes and rainbows as well as more innovative structures such as the container box! Another new addition is a rail made entirely of wood and a jibbing area.

The icing on the cake is the Olympic Halfpipe, an imposing structure which is 130 metres long, 18 metres wide and 6 metres high and is the only Olympic halfpipe in Europe.

A sound system runs through the entire snowpark and right at the bottom of the halfpipe there are two bars, snow and freestyle schools, a hire shop for boards and twin tips.