Over the past 20 years, the FIS Snowboard World Cup has traveled the world several times. While it all kicked off with nine venues on three different continents in the inaugural season, two more have been added to the map in the years after.

But it took quite a while to get the South America stop done.

Back in September 2001, six years after the first FIS Snowboard World Cup season, four events (HP, PSL, PGS and SBX) kicked off the 2002 contest winter in Valle Nevado, Chile.

Ted Martin, a former Race Director of the World Cup tour who was involved in making snowboard history happen, remembers how things started:

“Our title sponsor Nokia wanted to invest some time and resources into that market place and as I was already helping South America to develop snowboarding and had built up several relationships with different individuals, organisations and resorts and so FIS was able to put things together.”

In the end, it was the Chilean resort of Valle Nevado to put the hammer down.

“Other federations and resorts didn't want to take the monetary risk. And after we had successfully held Continental Cups at Valle Nevado over three years in a row, I was confident that the resort would have the infrastructure and facilities to host a World Cup event,” Martin explains.

Ever since, five more World Cups took place at the same venue despite some organisational problems: “Especially in the beginning, it was hard for us to get the venue and timing equipment through customs but in the end we got it done.”

Thanks to the experience gained by the Brazilian Federation and the Argentinian Sports Promotion Agency 'Knowledge' which both had been responsible to host the events in Chile with the cooperation of the local Federations the World Cup tour was able to also visit Argentina (Chapelco) a few years later (2008 & 2009).

Another Southern Hemisphere venue to host an event of the international contest series just one year after the World Cup had set up shop down under when Cardrona, New Zealand, hosted the first ever World Cup event (HP) in Oceania.

Source: fis-ski.ru