San Candido

US riders Kim Stacey and NOKIA World Team member Tricia Byrnes claimed 1st and 2nd place in the last World Cup halfpipe competition before the finals in Livigno, Italy, next week. But oddly enough, both will miss the finals as they'll be back in the States, competing in the US Open.

"It's happening close to my home and I am really looking forward to being there," said Stacey, who scored her first World Cup win today.

Going back to the States is a pretty hard decision for Byrnes who could defend her World Cup title by competing in Livigno. "It would be really good to have our finals together with the alpine skiers," she said. "It's too bad that the planning doesn't work so that I could do both events."

"If Tricia will not be there, I should be safe...."— Sabine Wehr-Hasler (GER)

But Byrnes' absence could spell victory for today's 3rd-place finisher, Sabine Wehr-Hasler from Germany. "If Tricia will not be there, I should be safe," she said, "but I don't want to celebrate this until it's confirmed. I had such a great season, my best ever, and I would really like to concluded it with that."

Wehr-Hasler keeps the lead in the overall rankings, ahead of Byrnes and Sweden's Anna Hellman, who only finished 14th today. Instead of competing in the finals, Hellman joined a group of self-named "assistant judges," who had fun making their own scores. This panel included Leslie McKenna (GBR), Melanie Leando (GBR), Alessandra Pescosta (ITA), Sophia Bergdahl (SWE) and Head Judge Richard Richardsson (SWE). Shame they were not allowed to really vote...

In the men's competition, with a total score of 44.3, Sweden's Marcus Jonsson took the lead after the first run and finally won the contest at just 0.3 points ahead of Magnus Sterner.

"I needed this today," Jonsson said, "whenever I made it to the finals this season, I messed it up there. I knew it worked quite well today so I tried not to crash. It is too bad that Thomas (Johansson) and Fredrik (Sterner) are not here."

	Jonsson

"We had so much bad luck, we really needed to have something good and we somehow did it for our coach," said Marcus Sterner, referring to the bad times the Swedish Team has been experiencing on the tour.

Anders Bjoerck crashed in Nagano, then World Cup leader Johansson and second-ranked Sterner both got hurt in Park City last week. Even the Swedish coach went to hospital recently, suffering from a skin rash.

But all has not been lost for the Swedes. Johansson has a lock on the World Cup Halfpipe Crystal Globe, and Sterner has a good shot at 2nd place, if he isn't pushed out by his teammates Magnus Sterner, who moved up to 3rd place in the rankings today, and Marcus Jonsson, who is currently in 4th position.

In today's contest, Japanese rider Kentaro Miyawaki made it to 3rd place and added more podium points to his score, after winning the season's fourth halfpipe event in Berchtesgaden.

The season's ninth snowboard cross will conclude the San Candido stage tomorrow.

—Britta Semmler, MountainZone.com Correspondent