With the competitive season now well underway, we thought this would be the perfect time to run you through all the key snowboard events leading up to the grandiose finale: Beijing Winter Olympics. Let’s get stuck in!
US Grand Prix Mammoth Mountain — January 6-8
Returning to the legendary Unbound Main Park, the Toyota US Grand Prix Slopestyle and Halfpipe World Cup is going to be a fucking dandy of a time in this special place.
This event will be the last non-televised or streamed event for the season, thank fuck (holding a bit of a grudge toward NBC if you can’t tell) before the travelling circus heads over to Europe. In addition, it’ll be the fourth time Mammoth has held Olympic qualifiers, after hosting the first-ever Olympic halfpipe qualifiers in 1998 as an official event, then again in 2014 and 2018.
Expect many of the current Mammoth hometown shredders to come out for this one, like Chloe Kim, Maddie Mastro, Judd Henkes, Brock Crouch and Dusty Henricksen.
Laax Open Jan 11 – 15
With all biases in check, it’s fair to say that the Laax Open is hands down one of the best snowboard events on the schedule (or in the world even!) From January 11th to the 15th, this is one event its probably worth taking an extra week of summer vacay and staying up to watch. Oh yeah, and we can actually watch this one. Thanks Laax, for streaming your events, you Swiss are alright!
This is the event that our queen Tess Coady stomped her run with Goliath-like aggression and found herself on the podium next to other queens of the sport, Jamie Anderson and one of our favs, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott.
This is the event that our young prince Valentino Guseli announced his talents to the world in scoring a 95.00 (let that sink in, 15 years old, stomping 95.00!!!) in qualifiers and stamping his ticket to the Winter Olympics.
But besides the riders we have our own invested interests in, this field is prestigious, to say the least. Anna Gasser, Chloe Kim, Jamie Anderson, Red Gerard, Shaun White, Zoi Sadowski Synott, Yuto Totsuka, Scotty James, Stale Sandbech and more!
This is going to be fun!
X-Games — January 21 – 23
What really needs to be said here? It’s the bloody X-GAMES!
Just take a gander at the list of the invited snowboarders for the games, and you’ll see, it’s going to be massive.
While not a qualifier for the Olympics, it barely matters. X-Games has always touted itself as the home for competition progression.
The one event I think most will have outlined to watch has to be the knuckle huck on day one. Anything where we get to see Zeb Powell flex his creative muscles, we’ll be excited for. Truth be told, we’ll watch anything Zeb does.
Beijing Winter Olympics Feb 4 – 20
Much like the X-Games, what really needs to be said. This is for four years of bragging rights and Olympic immortality!
We will have a plethora of athletes to watch this year, with Tess Coady, Zoi SS, Scotty James, Val Guseli, Jarryd Hughes, Cool Wakushima, Tiarn Collins, Mitch Davern, Cam Bolton, Adam Dickson, Adam Lambert, Belle Brockhoff… We hope Matty Cox but cannot confirm yet.
We will be having a more complete preview of the Olympics in the coming weeks, so for now, we will leave you with this flavour savour.
So there you have it; it may be stubbies and BBQ time of year, but it’s always snowing somewhere, and we will be ready to take it all in…from a distance for now.
Click here to check out our ultimate guide for snowboarders to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. It’s got all the good shit
