IT’S HERE! THE COMPETITION SEASON OF THE UTAH WINTER GAMES

Park City, UT (January 4, 2007) -- After dozens of learning clinics, the time is at hand for Utah's weekend Winter Warriors to put those newly acquired winter sports skills to the test. Every weekend from now through the end of March, there will be amateur winter sports competitions taking place at numerous venues around the Wasatch Mountains.

Executive Director Heidi Hughes says the 21st anniversary season has more competitions than ever before and they're spread out so more people can participate in more events.

The premiere event of the opening weekend has to be the short track speed skating at the Park City Ice Arena. Five-time Olympic speed skating gold medalist Dr. Eric Heiden will be the ceremonial starter for the event. Heiden is a distinguished orthopedic surgeon and now heads TOSH, the world-renowned The Orthopedic Specialist Hospital in Murray, but his heart is still on the ice. Heiden is one of a number of former Olympic athletes who are donating their time to the Utah Winter Games to help amateur athletes enjoy winter sports.

Also on this first weekend, disabled skiers will take to the slopes at the Park City Mountain Resort to compete for the traditional Huntsman Cup. Alta will also host the always popular KSL Family and Friends slalom ski race.

Other sports highlights will include Saturday, January 20th, when skeleton racing comes to the Utah Winter Games for the first time. Olympic Gold Medalist Jim Shea, Jr., has donated money from the Shea Foundation, and former Olympian and World Cup winner Lincoln deWitt will be on hand to coach racers before they plunge down the Olympic skeleton track at nearly 80 miles an hour.

That same weekend, the surprise hit of last year's games takes to the snow at Soldier Hollow. The cross-country ski race last winter attracted a hundred people, and this year promises to be larger.

High excitement comes to Brighton on January 27th when the always sold-out Jeep Terrain Park Slopestyle Challenge hits the hill. That event is limited to the first 80 competitors to sign up. There are separate events for snowboarders and skiers. The winners automatically qualify for the Jeep Terrain Park regional slopestyle competitions later in the season. There will be 75 national qualifiers who will go head-to-head in the regional competitions, and the winners will go to the Jeep National Slopestyle Championship in Lake Tahoe in March.

The Park City Mountain Resort will host a KSL Family and Friends ski race on March 3rd. About the only restriction on this fun family race is that you have to be at least 3 years old to compete and no one older than 93 has ever competed in it, but if you're 94, you're more than welcome to take on the age-graded competition.

Scattered around the rest of the weekends are lots of ski racing, cross-country, biathlon, curling, long-track speed skating, figure skating, ski archery, ski jumping, luge, and a wild bunch of snowboard slopestyle, jibbing, jam sessions, and even a competition devoted entirely to jibbing on and off trees. You don't have to be any good at these sports to have an awful lot of fun trying them out, but if you are good, you could go home with a gold medal since all of the competitions are graded by age and gender.

Add all these events together, and you have the recipe for thousands of Utahns to have loads of fun in eleven sports.

The Utah Winter Games are the oldest and biggest amateur winter sports event in the country. They continue the legacy of 2002 in Utah by making it possible for large numbers of people of all skill levels to have a wonderful time with winter sports.
In the 2005-2006 20th anniversary season, more than three thousand people took part in 20 competitions in 15 sports and 32 instructional clinics.

The Utah Winter Games: All Ages, All Abilities, Always Fun.

For more information on the Utah Winter Games, please contact Christa Graff at 435-640-7921 or christa@graffpr.com or visit the Utah Winter Games web site at www.utahwintergames.org.