Snowsport: Grant to boost snowboarding

Snowboarding will be one of the biggest winter sports benefactors from a $750,000 Sparc grant for Snow Sports New Zealand (SSNZ), announced this week.

SSNZ chief executive Ross Palmer said slopestyle snowboarders and New Zealand's top disabled snowboarder will receive direct financial support as a result of the investment by Sparc.

Slopestyle - a snowboarding event in which riders try to score points from landing technical tricks down a short course consisting of jumps and rails - is still outside the Winter Olympic list of ratified snowboarding disciplines, as is disabled snowboarding.

Because of this, New Zealand athletes competing in the respective disciplines have previously been ineligible for direct financial assistance from Sparc and Snow Sports New Zealand.

Slopestyle specialists Shelly Gotlieb, of Ohakune, Stef Zeestraten, of Wanaka, Nick Hyne, of Mount Manganui, and Nick Brown, of Queenstown, are at the forefront of the discipline in New Zealand.

They targeting the 2011 World Championships in La Molina, Spain, although a much sought-after invitation for the Winter Games, next year, is not out of the question for Gotlieb.

The Queenstown-based snowboarder won the slopestyle competition at the Winter Games in August and also placed third in the New Zealand Burton Open.

The 29-year-old has several top-five finishes on the world stage and was named New Zealand Snowboarder of the Year in June.

The slopestyle athletes are preparing for the northern hemisphere winter circuit and plan to compete in Dew Tour events, the Burton Global Open Series, and in FIS World Cups.

Sparc's investment will also support adaptive snowboarder Carl Murphy, of New Plymouth, in his quest to compete in the Paralympics, Palmer said.

Snowboarding is lobbying for inclusion in the 2014 Paralympic Games.

Traditionally, Sparc had focused its high performance investment on Olympic disciplines, Palmer said.