Sierra Nevada hosts Spain's biggest international snow event of the year this weekend

Sierra Nevada hosts this weekend the most important winter sports competition of the season in Spain with the celebration of two events of the Snowboard Cross World Cup in which a hundred of the best world riders of the discipline will participate, among them the members of the Spanish team with the rider from San Sebastian Lucas Eguibar at the head.

The two rounds of the Sierra Nevada SBX World Cup were presented today in the Alhambra. After the official photo of the participating teams in the Jardines del Partal, the Director General of Sports Systems and Values of the Junta de Andalucía, María de Nova, stressed that "Andalusia is once again hosting major sporting events which, as well as promoting sport, serve as an important tourist and cultural attraction. 

"That is why it is so important that Andalusia is hosting this Snowboard Cross World Cup, we have that privilege, and it will also take place in a wonderful environment such as Sierra Nevada, which is undoubtedly a plus for the competition and for the athletes who visit us," she stressed.

The competition, sponsored by the Consejería de Turismo, Cultura y Deporte de la Junta de Andalucía with co-financing from the European Union, is held just after the World Snowboard Championships in Bakuriani (Georgia) and before the last two races (in Veysonnaz, Switzerland; and Mr. St. Ann, Canada) that will close the annual SBX World Cup circuit.

The CEO of Cetursa Sierra Nevada, Jesús Ibáñez, has highlighted the "enormous effort" of the team of constructors of Sierra Nevada to configure, "not always with favourable weather", a circuit "of great attraction" for the riders, the public and the televisions. 

"Of the 10 competitions in the world, two are held here in SN. We have been working on this for a long time, we want to thank the role of Spainsnow and the Andalusian Winter Sports Federation (FADI) for wanting to take on this project together with us. We want people to enjoy themselves, the people of Granada and Andalusia to be able to go up and see this world spectacle," said Ibáñez.

The Loma de Dílar SBX circuit consists of six banked corners, four jumps and seven bumpy areas (dubbies). In Spain, Teledeporte, Eurosport and Andalucía Televisión will broadcast the Sierra Nevada World Cup, while 20 television channels will distribute the signal in European, Asian and American countries.

The president of the Royal Spanish Winter Sports Federation (RFEDI), May Peus, recalled that holding top-level events in Spain "is included in our Strategic Plan. We started to believe it in 2017 after the snowboard and freeski World Cup, in which we had some fantastic results together with the bronze medal of Regino Hernández at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. Thanks to the Movistar Cup we have riders like Álvaro -Romero- who is still a junior and has medals in events of this style (juniors) and who has just had a great World Cup. We have Spanish heroes who are the rivals to beat in this World Cup in Sierra Nevada.

In this sense, the president of the Andalusian federation, Carlos Santandreu, has underlined the possibilities of sporting evolution of Andalusian riders thanks to Sierra Nevada's commitment to snowboard cross; so much so that local riders like Candela Fuentes and Lorenzo Jiménez, who this year have participated in the European Cup SBX, are already in the orbit of the national team.

FIS snowboard coordinator Uwe Beier thanked "everyone involved from Sierra Nevada to the federations for organising the two World Cups. It's an important event for us, we want to grow our sport and venues like Sierra Nevada bring us closer to the goal of making it more popular. We have a long circuit with a lot of snow and I'm sure we will enjoy it".

The young rider of RFEDI, Alvaro Romero, representing the Spanish national team, has known today the circuit of the Loma de Dílar and his impression could not be better: "it looks very good, it is a long circuit, big and well done curves, a lot of work when making this circuit. It looks very good and we are very happy". "A very nice race because I was going with high expectations, to give my best level. It went very well, I fought a lot, with the best and I saw myself capable of being with them so I'm very happy to leave Georgia and it's the best thing that could happen to me to come here with the greatest motivation for the Sierra Nevada World Cup."