Warfield’s Mitch and Tommy Pitman are flying around the world in order to fly down a snowboard-cross track in Erzurum, Turkey for the World Junior Snowboard-cross championship this weekend.
The twins hopped a plane in Spokane Monday and will board six flights, and travel over 10,000 kilometres, taking more than 24 hours to arrive at their destination in northern Turkey.
This will be the fourth and final World Juniors for the 19-year-old brothers, having competed in Spain, Italy, and New Zealand in the past three years.
Tommy is coming off a just-missed podium finish at the NorAm Cup in Big White last week placing fourth and sixth in the two SBX events. Pitman was leading the second race when another racer clipped him sending him into a spin, and causing him to miss advancing to the second race final. Mitch meanwhile finished in a respectable 11th and 14th at Big White and had a solid 13th place finish at the NorAm Cup race in Killington, Vt. the previous week, while Tommy had a seventh-place finish.
Tommy finished 17th and Mitch in 22nd position at the Junior World’s in Sierra Nevada, Spain last year.
After the Worlds Mitch will be heading back to prepare for the NorAm race at Mt Hood, Ore. and Tommy will stay in Switzerland to attend two World Cups at Arosa and Veysonnaz. They will finish up the season at Big White on the Easter weekend at the Nationals.