Shredding toward Turin

Nate Holland’s story begins like many Olympic stories, with a kid glued to the opening ceremonies dreaming about someday competing for the United States. Then Holland went out and picked up snowboarding, a sport that wasn’t part of the Olympics.

Even when the International Olympic Committee finally relented, adding giant slalom and halfpipe to the schedule of Olympic events in Salt Lake City in 2002, Holland was still learning the ropes of professional snowboarding.

His moment came three years ago, when the IOC announced they were adding snowboardcross for the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy, Feb. 10-26.

“I was doing well in that discipline,” the 27-year-old Holland said. “I focused on it, and that brought me into the position I am today.”

That position is the top-ranked American in the snowboardcross World Cup standings, and third overall in the field that essentially will be his competition for and at the Olympics.

Those rankings reflect a World Cup win in the most recent snowboardcross event at Saas-Fee in the Swiss Alps on Oct. 22.

Snowboardcross is an event which starts with 32 competitors. Those competitors square off, four at a time, on a mountain course that includes jumps and other obstacles. The top two advance as the field is whittled down to the final four, and those four compete for gold, silver and bronze medals.

“It’s an exciting sport,” Holland said. “Four go down the course at once, and there’s only room for two, so something’s got to give.”

Holland grew up in a log cabin outside Sandpoint, the middle of three boys.

Nate’s younger brother Pat also competes in snowboardcross, and his older brother, Eric, snowboards and kayaks.

Their father, Don Holland, played football for the University of Kentucky from 1967-69, so Nate grew up in an athletic, outdoorsy and competitive family.

“I say that it was like raising bear cubs,” said Rebecca Holland, Nate’s mother.

Nate learned to ski when he was 3 years old. He had always skateboarded, and when he received a snowboard for his birthday, he began to teach himself.

At 12, Holland competed in a halfpipe contest at Silver Mountain and won. Ever since, he’s been hooked.

“A pack of friends that I’d ride with would go and hit the slopes every weekend we had a chance,” Holland said. “Me and my buddies would travel around and do contests to get away from the parents. We were all pretty competitive.”

Holland also played defensive back in football at Sandpoint, and after graduating, went to North Idaho College for a semester.

“I just said, ‘This is not happening,’ and I had to get out,” Holland said. “I wanted to be a pro snowboarder and this was the time to do it.”

He moved to Lake Tahoe to pursue his pro snowboarding career, but for a while, it was slow going.

“I did some tile setting and then I got my pass, working as a part-time lift operator at Squaw Valley,” Holland said. “I barely made ends meet for a while, did well in contests for some money and capitalized with sponsorships. It was a constant battle.”

In snowboarding’s first Olympics incarnation, Holland wasn’t good enough to make it. When snowboardcross was announced as an Olympics event, the possibility of someday boarding in the Olympics became more of a reality.

“I just said, ‘I have a shot at this. I can do this,’ ” Holland said. “I have the all-around skills to ride the course, I had racing skills, and I kind of just put everything together.”

Holland made the United States’ first snowboardcross team, giving him a chance compete in World Cup events. In 2004, he won the national snowboardcross championship and was named “Boardercross Racer of the Year” by Ski Racing Magazine.

He’s won two World Cup events in 2005, making him the top American candidate for the Olympic team. The United States Olympic Committee will take at least one male and one female snowboardcross competitor to Turin, with the possibility of more if any emerge as medal candidates. In the American-dominated halfpipe at least eight Americans will be in Italy.

With two wins and the most points of any American, Holland appears to be in good shape for Turin.

“I’ve just got to keep riding how I’m riding,” Holland said. “I’m super-strong, healthy and have been working out all summer long.”

The Hollands are already preparing to go if he makes the Olympic team.

“We’ve got a party of 11 looking into it,” Rebecca said. “We’re planning on being there.”

So is Nate, and he’s also got the mentality to win the entire thing.

Both Rebecca and Nate recalled an X-Games event in which Nate was third with a sizable lead over the boarder in fourth place. He could have coasted to the bronze medal, but that wasn’t quite enough.

“Nobody remembers second or third place,” Nate said. “You’ve got to take those chances. My whole attitude is wreck or win. I got a little too much air on a jump and totally wrecked and wiped out. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I had sat back and coasted into third.”

Even though he crashed, he didn’t learn how to throttle back.

“If I’m in the same position in the Olympics, you better believe I’m going for the gold.”