Marko Grilc bagged himself first place in the style session at the recent 20-year anniversary Air&Style in Innsbruck. Check his take on proceedings, and on why style is so important in snowboarding. Oh, and WINNING!

Eric Willett. Switch backside 1260 to winning. Photos: Thomas Copsey

In the place where it all began back in 1994, 25-year-old American Eric Willett scored his first major career win as he sent a switch backside 12 to place ahead of Seb Toutant, Alek Østreng and Mark McMorris.

After last night’s homage to the Air&Style’s past glories, Saturday’s spectacle was all about competitive snowboarding’s here and now. As anyone who’s watched the contest circuit this season will know, the level of progressive, technical kicker riding has engaged its booster rockets and reached escape velocity with double corks now a stock trick and an ever-lengthening list of people swanning past the burly bouncer on the club named Triple Cork.

Seppe Smits.

But although several riders landed the current trick du jour throughout the contest, it wasn’t the deciding factor here. Hang about, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Last year’s event was characterised by bulletproof conditions whereas here the opposite was the case. Throughout the afternoon and evening snow had been falling continually meaning both the run in, take-off and landing were challengingly slow and soft. This resulted in more than a couple of instances where riders got bucked leaving the lip and ratcheted back their rotation to something mellow like a 7 or 9, rather than the anticipated double 10, 12, or 1440. Hey, at least it means these kids are actually human.

Alek Østreng.

Rounds 1 and 2 proceeded without any major upset – save for the elimination of Club Triple’s Maxence Parrot at the hands of Clemens Schattschneider (who, it must be noted, landed a front double 10 that in mammalian genitalia terms could be classed as ‘whale cock’) and the early matchup of last year’s winner Peetu Piiroinen and last year’s World Snowboard Tour winner Stale Sandbech resulting in Peetu’s monster pop being outdone by Stale’s well stomped back 14 triple and up-down jibs on the rail section.

Stale Sandbech.

While, make no mistake, the earlier rounds had seen some heavy riding, it was in the Round 3, the Semis or whatever you want to call it where the riding really ratcheted up a notch; arguably – well not arguably, factually really – the level was higher here in the final. Seppe Smits had been sending it to the moon all evening, stomping monster cab doublish 12s with his unique slant on the trick, but was perhaps judged a little harshly against Eric Willet and had to head for an early bath. Air&Style Beijing champ Yuki Kadono went for the triple dip again but couldn’t find his landing gear and had to settle for the score on his Cab 12, which was not enough to stop Seb Toutant’s wired Cab double 12s advancing. Alek Østreng vs Roope Tonteri was characterised by an uncharacteristic amount of slams before Alek put one down that counted, but arguably the heat of the night was Stale vs McMorris where the two, fresh from blowing minds at the X Games, traded flawless triples and tech jibbing with McMorris’s slightly superior execution and better rail combo – Cab 270 boardslide – edging this one in his favour and netting him 96 points – the highest score of the event.

Mark McMorris.

So it was into the final chapter of this historic edition. Dudes had 3 runs with the best one counting, the only caveat was that they couldn’t try the same trick more than twice. Either as a result of the relentless snowfall or tired legs, try as he might Mark McMorris couldn’t put down the triple again and ended up in fourth, looking none-too pleased with himself and Østreng’s back 12s were decent but perhaps imperfect so he settled for third. Eric Willett had taken the early lead, his switch back 12 put down with the reassuring thwack of a perfect landing but, due to the format of having the first place rider drop first for the last jump, ha had a nervy moment waiting to see what Seb Toutant would pull from his deep wizard’s sleeve. Having already posted a couple of his ol’ faithful Cab 12 dubs he had to mix it up and, opting not to triple the cork fantastic (we found out later he thought the jump was “too small” for that), went for a double rodeo but arsed out. That was that. Eric Willett had secured his first ever 6-Star World Snowboard Tour win, and the consensus was one of stoke that he had done so. The guy’s got one of the biggest smiles in the game and was hyped to have cme out on top at this memorable edition of an already prestigious event.

If you’re wondering why Mark McMorris has two shots, it’s because he pulled a textbook Method. YES!

You’d be forgiven for thinking that was the Air&Style done for this year, but you’d be wrong. To follow up this party they’ll be heading across the pond to Mexico and, as the MC let slip, Brazil too, before dropping back in on Beijing in December, so there’s no laurel-resting from these guys that’s for sure. But for the 20-year anniversary that was a wrap. We had style, we had stunts, we had a crowd that couldn’t have been more hyped. We had one hell of a show. Happy Birthday Air&Style.

Tune in shortly for full video recaps and a gallery.

And here they are: The video highlights of the first day of the 2013 Innsbruck Air & Style, including the jam session featuring hot guns like Mark McMorris, Seb Toots, and Stale Sandbech, and the burn Style Session featuring legends like Jamie Lynn, Terje Haakonsen and Mike Basich. Check here for our full report.

For those who want to go through all the haps from last night: Here’s the full-length video from last night.

Seb Toots throwing down. Photo: Danny Burrows

For their 20th anniversary, the Air & Style Innsbruck has turned into a two day event full of action, legends, and even more parties. This Friday, the event kicked off with the riders draw, a short jam session of tomorrow’s contestants, and most of all the burn Style Session – featuring most legends competing over the illustrous history of the contest series.

After a night of style and nostalgia it was Marko Grilc who took home 10,000 Euros prize money for the most stylish trick of the night: an über-styled cab rodeo. However, little did this victory matter to the many fans, who had been cheering for legends like Terje Haakonsen, Bryan Iguchi, Michi Albin, or local heros like Stefan Gimpl or Thomas ‘Beckna’ Eberharter.

Other noteworthy tricks and style masters included Sani Alibabic’s back 5s and 7s, Werni Stock’s switch backside 5 (including a good poke and shifty), Arthur Longo’s back 7 melon, and Elias Elhardt’s back 5. In short: You should have been there! Especially since in between jamming and sessioning, Austrian fleeting music star Leftboy, and German grandfathers of hip-hop Die Fantastischen Vier were rocking the surprisingly packed venue.

We cannot wait to see tomorrow’s action by the current elite of big air snowboarding. It will be interesting to see how (and if) the style and slow spins of the old guys rubbed off onto current slopestyle wizards like Mark McMorris, Stale Sandbech, Antoine Truchon or Seppe Smits…

Tomorrow’s Knock-Out Round:

Yuki Kadono vs. Petja Piiroinen
Clemens Schattschneider vs. Maxence Parrot
Sebastien Toutant vs. Jørn Simen Aabøe
Eric Willet vs. Ethan Morgan
Niklas Mattson vs. Eric Beauchemin
Seppe Smits vs. Sage Kotsenburg
Ståle Sandbech vs. Ulrik Badertscher
Mark McMorris vs. Victor De Le Rue
Antoine Truchon vs. Matthias Weißenbacher
Roope Tonteri vs. Emil Ulstetten
Gjermund Bråten vs. Sven Thorgren
Peetu Piiroinen vs. Aleksander Østreng

Make sure you tune in from 18.00 CET to see snowboarding legends like Terje Haakonsen, Gigi Rüf, David Benedek, Jamie Lynn, Stefan Gimpl and more throw down in the burn Style Session alongside pretty much all of today’s kicker bosses. Gonna be BANGING.

Watch it live HERE.

More than 50 international riders have travelled to Innsbruck and the city will be once again the snowboarding hotspot of the season. A total of 11 X-Games winners are on their way to this year’s Billabong Air & Style in Innsbruck. Next to the Style king and the winner of the Billabong Air & Style this year’s World Snowboard Tour Big Air champion will also be crowned in Innsbruck. It’s the last 6star Big Air event of the ongoing season and a total of 12 riders could take home the Big Air crown.

The event will kick off on Friday, February 1st 2013, with a magnificent show and meet-up of four generations of snowboarders. The current top-ranking riders, among them Piiroinen, Smits, Toutant, Kadono, McMorris and Weißenbacher, will need to pull out all the stops in the jam session to have any chance of stealing the show from the sports legends, participating in the burn Style Session. All-time heroes like Haakonsen, Lynn, Iguchi, Benedek, Basich, Gimpl and Rüf, throwing down for the cream of the snowboarding public. The live stage, meanwhile, will feature rapper Left Boy and, for the second time since 2004, Die Fantastischen Vier.

On Saturday, February 2nd 2013, all eyes will be on the riders in the 6Star World Snowboard Tour Contest when the world elite battle it out for the title, the Ring of Glory, 1,000 World Snowboard Tour points and a total of 75,000 euros in prize money. The field has been bumped up from 16 to 24 riders to do justice to the larger numbers at the pinnacle of the sport. Last year’s winner Peetu Piroiinen, Air & Style Beijing winner Yuki Kadono, third-placed in Beijing Ståle Sandbech and co- favorites Sebastien Toutant and Mark McMorris will attempt to pull off the first Triple Corks on the demanding megakicker setup in Bergisel Stadium. Ethan Morgan will be flying the German flag, while Matthias Weißenbacher and Clemens Schattschneider will stand tall on their native snow for Austria. German Indie rappers Kraftklub and the current best American white rapper Mac Miller will provide the musical backing to match.

Weather forecast promises way warmer temperatures than last year to guarantee best riding conditions with a soft landing and perfect surroundings for all our fans. We are looking forward to celebrate this once in a lifetime episode of the Billabong Air & Style with 2 days, 4 Bands and more then 50 riders with you!

Make sure you watch it and get all the details and info to either enjoy it live on the webor on TV in your country: http://www.air-style.com/en/id-2013-air-style-innsbruck/live.html

Austrian rookie Mathias Weissenbacher blew the doors of at the recent Air & Style Beijing, making it all the way to the super finals by dispatching big names like Seppe Smits and Mark McMorris on his way. Check this edit for a little more light on the man. Nice accent by the way, Mathias – sounds a bit norf laandan.

burn is proud to introduce an all new competition to the snowboarding calendar that is all about superior style and creativity – The burn Style Session. Celebrating 20 years of stylish big airs at Air & Style, the contest is the perfect way to kick off the commemorative edition of the world’s most influential and iconic snowboard comp and will go down on February 1 2013 in Innsbruck’s Bergisel Stadium.

The burn Style Session will invite snowboarding’s greatest legends, including Gigi Rüf, David Benedek and Terje Haakonsen, to once again compete at the infamous Bergisel Stadium on Friday 1 February to battle it out for the ultimate champion of style. Rather than honouring rotations and corks, the burn Style Session takes snowboarding back to its roots, focusing on creative riding and individual flair. Expect super tweaked methods and stylish floaty 180s to be the order of the day.

“I think it’s great that burn is bringing back these old school style riders to the Bergisel Stadium. I don’t think anyone ever thought they’d see these guys compete again, especially not in Big Air. I really look forward to being part of this event – it’s like a piece of history,” says burn team rider Arthur Longo.

Invited riders: Terje Haakonsen, Gigi Rüf, Arthur Longo, David Benedek, Devun Walsh and many more

The 20th edition of Air & Style is shaping up to be the most highly anticipated event of the season. On Saturday 2 February the crowds will gather to watch the best of the international snowboarding scene compete for a share of the €75,000 prize pot. This year the rider line up has been extended from 16 to 24 to accommodate even more world-class talent.

Returning as sponsor for the third year, burn is proud to support Air & Style as it celebrates its 20th anniversary. As well as the burn Style Session, burn activity will include the global premiere of landmark snowboarding documentary film We Ride and an exhibition at the stadium charting the fascinating history of snowboarding.

Yuki Kadono whirling his way through the second of three backside corks on the final run of the contest. He won. No shit!

16-year-old Japanese rookie wins the prestigious Air & Style Beijing by blowing minds and stomping a backside 1440 triple cork on the last run of the contest. Watch that madness, and that of the other finalists, Peetu Piiroinen, Ståle Sandbech and Mathias Weissenbacher… We’ll have a fuller report on Monday, but that was just nuts. Plain and simple. [UPDATE - You can now read our breakdown of the haps last Saturday beneath these videos.]

1st PLACE – YUKI KADONO – BACKSIDE TRIPLE CORK 1440

2ND PLACE – PEETU PIIROINEN – CAB 1260

3RD PLACE – STÅLE SANDBECH – BACKSIDE 1440

4TH PLACE – MATHIAS WEISSENBACHER – BACKSIDE CORKED 1080

“Unexpected”. That’s perhaps the word that could best sum up events at the Air&Style Beijing last Saturday. Big names fell by the wayside early on, rookies made it all the way to the Super Finals, landed triple corks were deemed not good enough, and finally, on the last jump of the night, a 16-year-old Japanese kid put it down when it mattered to win the coveted Ring of Glory. Another word that could work equally well is ‘Insane’.

The early rounds saw a couple of dudes you’d expect at the business end of things sent for an early bath. Last year’s winner, Ulrik Badertscher, was dispatched in the first round by  Torgeir Bergrem, Seb Toutant was knocked out in Round 2 by Roope Tonteri, as was Seppe Smits (falling on Mathias Weissenbacher‘s sword). In our Air & Style Beijing predictions post prior to the event, we’d staked our dubious reputations on Mark McMorris to walk away with the win, and to do so with a backside triple cork 1440. Well, in an effort to make us appear smarter than we are, we were right in a way – McMorris did put down the bs 1440 triple, and a bs 1440 triple did win the contest, but sadly for Mark – and our reputation – when he put down the triple dipper in Round 3 (the first ever triple cork at an Air & Style, nonetheless) against Mathias Weissenbacher his landing was a little off, his hand drag significant and the judges gave it a harsh, but in our opinion fair, score that wasn’t enough to see him progress to the Super Finals.

The Super Final itself was a mix of newcomers and established names. As everyone should know by now, ‘Never Bet Against Peetu Piiroinen‘ is a good thing to bear in mind at major events, and Piiroinen’s huge pop, clean style and solid stomps saw off an on fire Sage Kotsenburg (whose double cork backside 10 Japans were epic, it must be noted) to see him face off against last year’s World Snowboard Tour winner Ståle Sandbech and his backside 1440, and the relative unknowns of Mathias Weissenbacher and Yuki Kadono. Ståle took the early lead, putting down another 1440 with consummate ease and for a while it looked like that would be enough – the others fell or looked like they were out of ideas to answer his score of 92 points.

But cometh the last run, cometh the man, as they say. All of a sudden Peetu fired off a textbook Cab 12 which, despite us having seen countless times before is really pretty hard to fault, and 93.33 points was his reward. It looked like he was a shoe-in for another Air & Style trophy for his bulging cabinet. Anyone who claims that they knew what would happen next is either lying or should have our jobs. Up until this point Yuki Kadono had been riding strong and putting down back double 10s and switch back double 12s, but we were of the opinion that the pressure would get to him and that it would be near impossible for him to pip Peetu’s perfection. Clearly, he had other ideas. The last jump of the whole contest, Yuki whirled through a backside triple 14, stomped it clean enough and immediately his hands reached for the sky.

After a short wait the judges confirmed it. 16-year-old Yuki had won the whole shebang with a score of 97.67 and you could tell he couldn’t quite believe what he’d done. Pulling something like that out the bag at the critical moment is a rare thing at this level, but he managed it and deservedly took the champagne shower, the cash, the ring and all the adulation that goes with it.

With the Air & Style celebrating its 20-year anniversary when it drops in on Innsbruck in January, this was the perfect pre-party party with a defining moment that rivals any in its previous 19 outings.

This is a lot of scaffolding.

We’ve gone all in and will tell you, definitively, who will not win the Air & Style Beijing 2012. Oh, and we have links/info so you can watch the shindig live wherever you may be. If you’re allergic to reading, you can get the links to watch the event right here.

Initially we were going to gaze into our crystalline balls and apply some of our dubious knowledge of stuntboarding to put our reputations on the line and predict who would win each heat and therefore, eventually, after much waffle, settle on our prediction for who would slip their knuckle through the Ring of Glory at the end of proceedings in Beijing today/tomorrow/towhereverthehellyouarereadingthisfrom.

Alas, the Lucky Losers format and the couple injuries (get well soon Werni)/no-shows have combined to throw a spanner in the works and knock something as clearly straightforward as regular contest snowboarding way over the fence and into the park of total unpredictability. Nevertheless we will offer you some predictions that you can take to the fucking BANK.

Here’s a bunch of dudes who are about to show you how friction’ nuts snowboarding is these days.

WHO WILL NOT WIN THE OAKLEY & SHAUN WHITE AIR & STYLE BEIJING – Shaun White.

WHO WE GUARANTEE WILL MAKE IT THROUGH ROUND 1 – Peetu Piiroinen and Yuki Kadono (Peetu automatically slips into round 2 as Nils Arvidsson was a late no-show, while Yuki was paired against Werni Stock who injured himself in training).

WHO WILL INSTAGRAM MOST FROM THE CONTEST – A close call between Mark McMorris, Marko Grilc and Ståle Sandbech, but we are backing Ståle to take this prestigious title home.

WHO SHOULD WIN BUT PROBABLY WON’T - Seppe Smits. This is reverse jinxing in practice. It’s about time Seppe won a contest like this.

WHO WILL WIN THE  OAKLEY & SHAUN WHITE AIR & STYLE BEIJING PRESENTED BY SHAUN WHITE AND OAKLEY - Oof. The biggie. ‘Never bet against Peetu’ is the smart man’s mantra, but the Mighty Mute’s not been quite so mighty over the last year or so. Hm. Ulrik Badertscher, equally, is hard to rule out following his epic win last year, while the likes of Ståle, Toutant, Sage and Grilo have already proved that they have the minerals for getting to the business end of contests such as this. Err. There’s also a bunch of rookies who’re stupidly talented and could very well pull off an upset, but the odds are pretty stacked against them in such a high pressure environment. And Seppe, c’mon dude, win this Ok? No, if push comes to shove we’re gonna whack our non-existent Euro credits on Mark McMorris to win this, and he will win it with a backside triple cork 1440. How about that for a bold prediction? [Disclaimer: prediction may be neither bold or accurate.]

Now make sure you watch it all go down live from 12.30 pm CET to see how right we are about Shaun not winning. *backslaps all round* *cheers*

The Munich Air&Style was in the tradition of its predecessors and once again kicked snowboarding up a notch, with Peetu Piiroinen claiming the win at the last. Full report plus highlight video.

On Saturday, the entire Onboard editorial crew set out to report from the TTR 6Star Nike 6.0 Air&Style Munich. And I promise, we meant to get a report up as soon as the event ended. Unfortunately, there was not one but two different VIP lounges with free booze and on top of that an aftershow party with Nike employees constantly slipping us drink vouchers. Ah, I guess that comes with big corporations entering our sport… On the upside the Munich Air&Style was in the tradition of its predecessors and once again kicked snowboarding up a notch.

The prizegiving. Photo: Sami Tuoriniemi

Yes, there was a lot of hucking and double-corking, but the four super-finalists Peetu Piiroinen, Seppe Smits, Halldor Helgason and Nils Arvidsson each in their own way showed where the sport is developing in terms of kicker riding. Peetu threw down a Cab 1260 on the straight jump and a frontblunt 270 out on the rail section and took home the win (as well as a large share of the 75,000 euro prize purse, the coveted “Air & Style Ring of Glory” and 1000 TTR points). Second place finisher, Seppe Smits, was super consistent all night stomping just about every single trick he attempted. His best scoring trick was his own variation of the Cab 1260 combined with a frontside noseslide to pretzel out in the final round, but he also snuck a Cab 1440 in there for good measure. Coming in third place was Halldor Helgason, who was pushing his limits with an attempted crazy double back rodeo 12 Japan. Even though he did not land this “Lobsterflip” his riding was the clear favourite with the 16,500 spectators.

Peetu Piiroinen on his way to victory. Photo: Sami Tuoriniemi

Strangely enough the Nike 6.0 Stairset Battle Finals, which went down before the big air comp, hardly gets any mentioning in the official press releases. However, having a full-on jam session in a stadium was quite a unique thing, and the level or riding was insanely high. Half of the riders had to qualify at various events throughout the season, and the other half consisted of some heavy hitters of the urban kind. In the end it was Mike Casanova who took the victory (and 10,000 euros cash), followed by Jamie Nicholls and Forest Bailey. To be honest the whole thing was quite hectic as the jam session itself lasted only 30 minutes before an even shorter final between the top 8 went down. It was quite hard to follow what each riders was throwing down. Maybe some other hack who was a little more focussed on the riding can add the missing tricks in this write-up.

Mike Casanova on the money. Photo: Sami Tuoriniemi

Now with the Air&Style series done and over where will the contest aficionado turn to? Here’s what the TTR says:

With the Nike 6.0 Air & Style Munich wrapped up, all eyes will shift to Oslo, Norway where The Oakley Arctic Challenge will go off from February, 14th to the 19th, 2011. The Oakley Arctic Challenge is the last 6Star stop before the Swatch TTR tour finale in America at the 6Star Burton US Open, where both the men’s and women’s TTR World Tour Champion titles will be awarded. The end of February will also see the men compete at the 5Star Burn River Jump in Italy on the 22nd to the 25th of Febraury 2011, as well as the 4Star Sony Ericsson Snowboard Fest on the 18th and 19th of February 2011 Head to ttrworldtour.com for new videos, photos, updated rankings and webcast schedules.

Halldor's "Lobsterflip" Photo: Sami Tuoriniemi

Results Nike 6.0 Air & Style Munich 2011

1. PIIROINEN, Peetu FIN Nike 6.0, Burton 93,07 Points
2. SMITS, Seppe BEL Red Bull, Burton 91,60
3. HELGASON, Halldor ISL Nike 6.0 77,60
4. ARVIDSSON, Nils SWE Rip Curl 37,00
5. TOUTANT, Sebastien CAN O’Neill, Red Bull
6. MORGAN, Ethan GER Nike 6.0
7. BADERTSCHER, Ulrik NOR Quiksilver
8. STOCK, Werner AUT Burton, burn
9. KOSKI, Markku FIN Quiksilver
10. HALLER, Christian SUI Burton
11. KOTSENBURG, Sage USA Nike 6.0, Monster
12. PODLADTCHIKOV, Iouri SUI Quiksilver
13. KÖNIG, Peter AUT Forum
14. MALIN, Markus FIN 32 Snowboard Boots
15. AGUIRRE, Mason USA Nike 6.0
16. KORPI, Janne FIN Kissmark

Results Nike 6.0 Stairset Battle FInale

1. CASANOVA, Mike USA Atmosphere, Monument 89,33 Points
2. NICHOLLS, Jamie GBR Nike 6.0 84,33
3. BAILEY, Forest USA GNU, Red Bull 82,67
4. PAWLUSIAK, Wojtek POL Burton, AG 75,67
5. VALAIKA, Keegan USA Burton, Gnarley 73,00
6. HELGASON, Eiki ISL Oakley, Skullcandy 68,33
7. RAJCSANYI, Daniel GER Sionyx, Ride 68,00
8. BÜHLER, Boris SUI Academy  15,00