16-year-old Sage Kotsenburg will compete alongside Rice in slopestyle

Huntington Beach, CA (January 27, 2010) – As the X Games come to life this week in Aspen, CO, look for Travis Rice to try to defend his Big Air gold and take to the slopestyle course with a handful of new tricks. Rice will be joined in slopestyle by 16-year-old Quiksilver rookie Sage Kotsenburg, who is also in the qualifiers for a place in the Big Air contest.

“Stoked to be back at X for another year. The big air contest has a better format this year, more of a jam session, not the text message voting,” says Rice. “It will allow riders to not be hung up on just chucking the biggest trick that they have. I haven’t ridden it yet, but I talked with Gunny [Chris Gunderson of Snow Park Technologies] and the slopestyle course looks fast and fun.”

Last year, with the help of tens of thousands of fans Rice took the Big Air win in text message voting with a double-cork 1080. This year tune in to ESPN, January 30th starting at 9:00EST/6:00PST Rice, as he lays down the heaviest tricks in snowboarding.

The next afternoon both Rice and Kotsenburg will be hitting the booters and rails of Buttermilk’s slopestyle course for another shot at a medal. Rice climbed the podium for X Games slopestyle in 2005 and won the U.S. Open for slopestyle in 2007.

Kotsenburg is packing a pocketful of progressive tricks to pull out on both the slopestyle course and possibly also in big air the night before. Look for his cab double-cork 1260, which he’s been stomping regularly in practice. Currently, the Park City local is in second place for the Dew Tour Cup for slopestyle having taken 2nd place in Breckenridge and 3rd at Snowbasin. The final event of the Dew Tour takes place February 4th-7th at Mt. Snow, VT.

Following the X Games, Rice heads into the mountains to begin filming for his next two-year epic project, Flight. “I just came from riding my brains out in Snowbird, Utah for the North Face Masters and had a blast,” says Rice. “It will be a nice a change to come down and ride some park after riding powder for the last week.”

Check out Rice, Kotsenburg and the entire Quiksilver snow team at Quiksilver.com/snow where you’ll also find weekly episodes of the Todcast, hosted by Quiksilver rider, Todd Richards.