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THE UPDATE

At last night’s Winter X Games in As-pen, Vail was well represented in the Ski Superpipe competition, with Ski and Snowboard Club Vail freestylers Jen Hudak, Anais Caradeux competing in the finals for the women.

On Wednesday, locals Taylor Seaton and Jess Cumming also compet-ed in the ski superpipe qualifiers; Seaton took 10th and Cumming finished ninth. The top six advanced to finals.

SSCV’s David Wise also made Ski Superpipe finals for the men, which will kick off today at 4:45 p.m.

Other locals to look for today are “x-ers” Chris Del Bosco and Faye Gu-lini. Del Bosco is the reigning X Games champion in Skier Cross, dubbed Skier X, while Gulini took 7th in Snowboard Cross (SBX) last year.

For Gulini, who just finished up school at Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy

(VSSA), this will be her third appear-ance at the Winter X Games.

Originally from Salt Lake City, Gu-lini, 18, made the move to Vail to attend VSSA, where she is able to ride every day. It paid off, as last year she made it to the Olympics. She made her X Games debut in 2009 and finished 10th in SBX and Snowboard Superpipe. In 2010, she bettered her finish, landing in seventh place in SBX and winning the consola-tion round after just missing finals.

Chris Del Bosco, an Eagle-Vail lo-cal who races on the Canadian Skier X team, is hoping to make history this weekend by becoming the first man to win consecutive Skier X titles, after he won the 2010 event ahead of teammates Dave Duncan, of London, Ont., and Cal-gary’s Brady Leman.

“No one’s ever won back-to-back at the X Games so the goal is definitely to try to do that,” said Del Bosco, who won his first World Cup race of the season at Les Contamines, France, on Jan. 16. “For me, the X Games is huge. It’s kind of where our sport started.”

Qualifiers are slated to start at 9:30 a.m. in SBX, and noon for Skier X.

Vail athletes invade AspenValley well represented at 15th annual Winter X Games

January 28, 2011FRIDAY

DJ ANA-SIA AT SAMANA

TONIGHTThis week’s Vail and Beaver Creek town

series results insidePoet Laureate coming

to Vail next week

OakCreek

page 6

coolsculptingby ZELTIQ

page 7

Early Bird Special

2 for 1Entrées

page 13

Eagle Liquor Mart

$1799Van Gogh

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page 5

$695PERSONALPIZZA

page 5 page 9

page 20Celebrating 30 years of newspaper publishing

Finding a sponsor can be a difficult task, but changing the world is even more of an overwhelming challenge. Put those together and you come up with defending X Games ski cross gold medalist Chris Del Bosco.

Del Bosco, who’s from Eagle-Vail and skis for the Canadians, and the Denver based Nokero company have come up with a sponsorship/ fundraising pro-gram, Ski 4 Light, which they are hoping will help raise $20,000 through dona-tions to deliver 1,000 of Nokero’s so-lar light bulbs to impoverished nations around the world that use kerosene for lighting.

The idea is to have Del Bosco’s hel-met, which features a battery-powered LED display spelling the company’s name across the front of it, help bring awareness to the problem of burning kerosene.

According to Nokero’s website, there are 1.3 million barrels of oil consumed

everyday for lighting. More than 1.6 billion people live without electricity. The fuel they use for light releases more than 190 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year, the equivalent of 30 million cars.

When asked about the new partnership,

Del Bosco said, “It’s great. An athlete can be selfish some times, kind of out for yourself, trying to be No.1. I was looking for a way to make it more mean-ingful. Something like this highlights some of these problems and the fact there is a solution with these bulbs.”

Chris and Nokero’s partnership came together thanks in part to Chris’s sis-ter, Heather, who grew up ski racing with the inventor of the solar light bulbs at SSCV, Steve Katsaros.

“I contacted them in December to

By Brian AlexanderMountaineer Staff Writer Del Bosco And Nokero’s bright idea

Local Ski Crosser trying to reduce kerosene burningBy Brian Alexander

DEL BOSCO

[See DEL BOSCO, page 23]

People Under the Stairs play Agave tonightLos Angeles-based People Under The Stairs, Double K (Michael Turner) and Thes One (Christopher Portugal) say they are the most successful fully independent rap duo in the history of Hip-Hop. People Under The Stairs have performed more than a thousand sold out shows, festivals and world tours spanning six continents and 40 coun-tries. Often called “The Steely Dan of Rap Music,” they have self managed, produced and engineered 7 full-length al-bums since 1998. Their career includes an appearance on The Simpson’s 20th Anniversary Special, a John Peele Ses-sion at Abbey Road, and groundbreaking performances at key festivals such as Glastonbury, Coachella and Bonaroo. They play Agave in Avon tonight, see “Tonight’s local music scene” inside.

HUDAK

+4.39A surprise jump in applications for

unemployment benefits and mixed earn-ings from large U.S. companies kept stocks on a short leash yesterday. The S&P 500 rose 2.91 points, or 0.2 per-cent, to close at 1,299.54. The Dow inched up 4.39 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 11,989.83. The Nasdaq compos-ite index gained 15.78, or 0.6 percent, to 2,755.28.

Gates not pleased with Congress

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is ac-cusing Congress of dumping a “crisis on my doorstep” by holding the Pentagon

[See THE UPDATE, page 14]

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