For the first time; Bulgaria will host a round of this event in its capital the city of Sofia at the Alexander Batenberg Square next December 22nd outside of the National Art Gallery; it will be cost free for the spectators.



Bulgaria’s organizers are very excited about the opportunity of being hosts again and expect to have a large audience. For this occasion there is a project committee and its coordinator Konstantin Minchey said the arrangements for the constructions are being done such as: ramps, elevators, lighting and other necessary structures to cover the dimensions of this championships’ demands; these will begin next December 11th.

There is one specific ramp, the 350 tons one divided in sections which will have to be brought from Switzerland. In order to use this ramp they will have to cover it with three hundred tons of snow from the Vitosha Mountain process that takes around ten days and depends on the weather conditions. The committee stated it is a great prestige for the city of Sofia to host this massive event as for this season there are only five cities from the entire European continent that will be hosts. The main discipline in Bulgaria’s round will be the “Big Air" which will take place in Kniaz Aleksander.

The opening night will have Big Air Bag demonstrations around 5 in the afternoon and next day competitions will start at 10 in the morning with qualifications rounds to establish the finalists. A total of sixty competitors from fifteen different countries applied to be part of this championship. Bulgaria will be represented by Dimiter Chokoev, Mario Benio and Asen Lipov. The world’s best snowboarders will be part of the competition among which we can mention: the Austrian Stefan Gimpl, Finland’s Risto Mattila and Peetu Piiroinen.

Back in 1984 Bulgaria was the event’s host but more than twenty years later a massive national television coverage of the games is expected as well as live reporting from different areas of the country.