Vedder Fourth in Snowboard Cross Finale
After a disappointing first round of finals on Saturday, the Hydro Flask U.S. Snowboard Cross Team took to the Mt. St. Anne course looking for redemption in the final World Cup of the season. With perfect conditions, a well-designed course and an impressive showing of American fans, the squad was primed and ready to leave their mark on the 2023-24 season. Jake Vedder came away with a fourth place finish.
It was an exciting first round of racing for the men, with Nick Baumgartner advancing through his 1/8 heat to join teammates Connor Schlegel and Vedder for the first quarterfinal. The three Americans were joined by Canada’s own Eliot Grondin, who had already clinched the 2023-24 FIS World Cup snowboard cross Crystal Globe after a dominant season. The hometown hero led the way throughout most of the course until Vedder made an impressive push at the finish to steal the lead from Grondin and secure his place in the round of semifinals.
The start of the course proved costly yet again in the semifinals, with Italian Omar Visintin making an uncharacteristic mistake following the opening roller section, speaking to the technical difficulty of the course and making the first of two semifinals a three-man race. Vedder avoided the chaos and continued his impressive day of racing with a crafty pass on France’s Merlin Surget to finish close behind Grondin and guarantee himself a top-four finish to close out the season in front of a rowdy crowd cheering “USA” at the finish.
In the final race of the final World Cup of the season, the four fastest men of the day lined up in the start gate to take on the pristine Mt. St. Anne course for the final time. Despite a clean start and holding on to third throughout the first half of the race, Vedder fell to fourth to finish just off the podium behind German Leon Ulbricht in third, Australia’s Cameron Bolton in second and Grondin in first, who finished his dominant season with back-to-back victories on home soil.
On the women’s side of competition, American Stacy Gaskill and Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Jacobellis, who earned her 60th career podium with a second place finish in Montafon just a week prior, were both knocked out of competition in the quarterfinal round, taking 10th and 12th place overall, respectively.
After finishing the season in Mt. St. Anne following a grueling few months of back-to-back European races, the Hydro Flask U.S. Snowboard Team snowboard cross racers return stateside for some well deserved time off before setting their focus on summer training heading into the 2024-25 season.
Jake Vedder
Jake Vedder has been racing snowboard cross since he was eight years old, but 2016 was a true breakout year for the Michigander, who calls the town of Pinckney home. He scored multiple NorAm Cup podiums and his first World Cup appearance, but his big break was winning a gold medal for the U.S. at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Winter Games.
With that result, Vedder was invited to train with the snowboard cross development team in 2016, which resulted in making the A team in 2018, when he won a Junior World Championship gold medal.