Steamboat Springs Olympic snowboarder Justin Reiter is suing the International Olympic Committee over its decision to drop snowboard racing from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.

Reiter, who spent a year living in his Toyota Tundra, training without any coach as he battled to become the sole USA competitor in snowboarding’s parallel slalom debut at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, said he is the first athlete to ever sue the IOC seeking to reinstate an event. He filed his suit in Switzerland’s Lausanne District Court and the case’s first hearing is set for Friday.

The IOC in June announced four new Olympic events — mass start speedskating, mixed doubles curling, team skiing and snowboard big air — as an effort to grow the Olympics’ younger audience.

The debut of freeskiing and snowboarding slopestyle and freeskiing halfpipe contests in Sochi marked some of the highest energy of the 2014 Winter Games and the IOC was hoping to grow that interest with the high-flying big air competition. The format is expected to follow the path set by Aspen’s Winter X Games, which elevated the big air discipline with triple-and-quad spinning athletes hurling themselves off the last jump of the slopestyle course.

But the Olympic committee dropped the crowd-thrilling parallel slalom from the 2018 and 2022 schedule to make room for the new snowboarding event. The event pits hard-booted snowboarders racing side-by-side in a pair of timed gate-bashing descents. In Sochi, where U.S.-born Russian citizen Vic Wild won gold, the races drew packed, rowdy crowds.

Reiter, whose career on a snowboard spans a quarter century, rallied the world’s snowboarders after the IOC’s June 7 decision. In two weeks, an online petition asking the IOC to reinstall parallel slalom snowboarding harvested more than 15,000 signatures.

Reiter led a loose union of snowboard racers from Italy, Russia, Slovenia and Austria and drafted a letter urging the IOC to reconsider its decision. He’s not sure the letter even made it to the IOC.

He heard from a representative of skiing’s and snowboarding’s governing body, the International Federation of Skiing, or FIS, who told him to back off.

“He basically said that skiing and snowboarding have had more disciplines added to the Olympic than another sports out there so … we should be thankful,” Reiter said.

The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, which celebrated the inclusion of big air in the 2018 Olympics is staying neutral in Reiter’s fight.

“The IOC has established a process for determination of its Olympic events that has been progressive and evolved the Olympic program through time. We respect that process. At the same time, we also respect the rights of athletes like Justin Reiter to express their concerns to the IOC and other sports bodies,” said Luke Bodensteiner, the USSA’s vice president of athletics, in an e-mailed statement.

Reiter’s lawsuit targets the scheduling of the IOC’s decision, arguing the committee violated its own rules when it announced the new sports without a proper timeline allowing for comment or objection.

“I believe we have a valid case,” he said.

He heads to Switzerland this week to argue his case. He has launched an online campaign — similar to the one he used to support his Olympic training in 2012 and 2013 — to raise funds to help offset his legal costs.

This isn’t all about Reiter protecting his livelihood as an alpine carver.

“It’s much larger than that. This is about the singular fact that the IOC has unprecedented and unregulated power over the Olympics as the judge, jury and executioner of all their own decisions and the athletes have no voice,” he said. “The reason why I’m electing to do this and fighting to win is to set a precedent for athletes to follow and we can begin to get more things right. I want to reverse this decision and set a precedent that can benefit all athletes, so athletes have the opportunity to dream. I can’t sit idly by and let this happen. Over and over again the IOC oversteps its bounds because athletes are disposable to them. That’s not right.”

Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasonblevins