Oakley and Shaun White present Air & Style Beijing 2012 brings the world´s best snowboarders to the olympic stadium Beijing, the famous Bird’s Nest:

Badertscher, Toutant, Piroiinen² and Smits, are part of the 24 strong riders field to compete on December 8th 2012 with Sun Nan live on stage.

For the 3rd consecutive year the Air & Style takes place in Beijing, China, in the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium. The Oakley and Shaun White present Air & Style Beijing is the most important and only 6* event of the World Snowboard Tour (WST) on the Asian continent. It’s the year of the dragon and all 24 riders will need dragonblood pumping through their veins when dropping in from the 50 meter high start gate on top of the monsterous ramp. Dragons are high flying, fearless, risk taking apex predators, who soar to far away lands to seize glory and riches. These characteristcs are also key in sticking a double cork or 1440 enroute to winning the Oakley and Shaun White Air & Style.

Patrick McIlvain, Oakley Vice president Global Sports Marketing: “China is continually showing its strength as a global sports leader and the action sports arena is no exception. Now in its third year, Air & Style Beijing is building momentum behind the sport of snowboarding in one of the most important emerging markets in the world. Oakley is proud to partner with Shaun White in bringing one of the best snowboard events of the year to the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium.”

For the first time all 24 riders will start in a head-to-head competion from round 1 on. 12 winners and 4 lucky losers will advance to round 2 and battle their way through to the Super Final of 4 riders. 1,000 World Snowboard Tour points, a dragon’s share of the 75,000 Euro prize purse and the Ring Of Glory are the plunder wating to be captured by the top vanquishing hero. Ulrik Badertscher (NOR), winner of last years Beijing event, will lead big names such as WST champion Peetu Piiroinen (FIN) and WST Big Air champion Seppe Smits, into the stadium. The North American delegation, with Slopestyle world champion Chas Guldemond (USA), Mark McMorris (CAN), Seb Toutant (CAN), Eric Beauchemin(USA), Antoine Truchon (CAN), Sage Kotsenburg (USA) and Maxence Parrot (CAN) poses a formidable challenge to all. A menacing field of norsemen will travel from Scandinavia to the middle kingdom, China. Stale Sandbech (NOR), Petja Piroiinen (FIN), Torgeir Bergrem (NOR), Roope Tonteri (FIN), Emil Ulsletten (NOR), Sven Thorgren (SWE) and Nils Arvidsson (SWE) are coming to strengthen their position as one of snowboards strongest heritages. Never to be underestimated, Werner Stock (AUT), Clemens Schattschneider (AUT), Mathias Weissenbacher (AUT), Pat Brugener (SUI), Marko Grilc (SLO) and Viktor de la Rue (FRA) from the European Alps are a venerated guild. Yuki Kadono (JPN) will have the shortest trip to make, but may have the most to gain from a victory in his home continent.

And in old Air & Style tradition Sun Nan and Band will perform live on stage to entertain the Chinese crowd alongside breathtaking world elite snowboarding.

Program (Press conference for accredited journalists only):

Friday                          07.12.2011            2.00 pm   Riders Draw / Press Conference

Saturday                      08.12.2011            3.00 pm   Doors open
4.30 pm   Contest starts round 1 & round 2
6.30 pm   Sun Nan & live band                               

7.30 pm   Contest round 3 & superfinal
9.15 pm   Winners Press Conference

Starting field (Top 24)

Check the videos and read the report from the finals of the Air&Style Beijing, where Ulrik Badertscher blew the field away with his signature backside 1260 double cork to claim the title.

After much debate about whether kicker contests were in danger of becoming back 10 fests (in our office at least), the first major 6-Star TTR event of the season exploded any fears with a frantic, varied and we’d have to say awesome display of next level jumping at the Beijing Air&Style.

Unfairly maligned for his backside 1620 nute that popped up a few years ago (Ok, it was to steeze what Fosters is to beer), Ulrik Badertscher showed what those in the know already could tell you – he is a very good snowboarder, with a unique style to boot, and is far from the freakish whirling dervish that 1620 clip suggested. The fact that he’s apparently Halldor Helgason‘s favourite snowboarder speaks volumes of what Ulrik’s riding’s all about. We’d had our brains baffled by Ulrik’s winning trick a few months ago when we printed a sequence of it in the print mag and had to struggle with naming it for the caption. The axes he goes through on that spin are unlike anything we’d seen – it’s not flat and not super corked, but there’s certainly a couple of dips in there – and to see him put them down time after time as clean as a whistle was quite something.

In many ways it was a funny contest. The stream didn’t kick in till after the qualis and the first round were done, so we didn’t get to see favourite Mark McMorris get put to the sword by Ståle Sandbech’s first ever contest backside 1440 in the first round but we were tuned in to see the almost unheard of sight of both Seb Toutant and Seppe Smits falling, and failing to make the last round. Toutant’s cab double 12 wasn’t enough to quench the flames of an on-fire Badertscher while Seppe even washed out of the regulation back 10 he opted for to try and scrape through his heat – to us it looked like he was hurting pretty bad from an awkward fall a hit or two prior to that. He didn’t look right, and Nils Arvidsson looked slightly embarrassed to sneak into the final in such a manner.

The final was an all-scando affair. Sandbech, Badertscher and the ludicrously smooth Torstein Horgmo were flying the flag for Norway while Arvidsson had to face down his noisy neighbours for the Swedes. After being the first rider to attempt a triple cork at the Oxborn Session a couple years back, you could tell that Nils was having a sniff of tripling the light fantastic on two of his three hits, but every time he pulled out after two inversions. Not putting anything down in such company was always going to leaving him in 4th. Ståle had landed his first ever backside 1440 earlier in the contest and figured the only way he could answer his compatriot’s tricks was to land one again, which he did, however the grab was gone after 900 leaving the last 540 a bit helicoptered, and the landing scruffed.

It really came down to Torstein vs Ulrik, and it must be said that for all the noise about double corks taking snowboarding in a bad direction, when they’re done the way Horgmo does ‘em their aesthetic quality would make angels sing. His switch frontside double 10s were so composed, so smooth, so darn lazy and so well stomped we thought he’d be scored higher, and then when on his final hit he pulled a regular front 10 dub and added in a fully intentional shifty we couldn’t help thinking the judges missed it.

Nevertheless, even if they did see it it wouldn’t probably have rained on Ulrik’s parade. That trick is so unique, stylish and he stomps it like it ain’t no thang. While the one he did to win was not his best, it was still enough to make it a great win for him and a fine-looking podium for Norway.

RESULTS

1 – Ulrik Badertscher
2 – Torstein Horgmo
3 – Ståle Sandbech
4 – Nils Arvidsson

Red Bull Best Trick
Ulrik Badertscher – Double corked backside 1260

Or to give it its full official title, who’ll win the “Oakley & Shaun White present Air&Style Beijing”? It’s going down tomorrow – December 3 2011 – in the Birds Nest Olympic Stadium from 12.30pm Euro time, but to add some spice to the proceedings we’re throwing it out to you to give your predictions, and someone will win some swag too.

You can watch the Beijing Air&Style live from around 12.30pm tomorrow and have all the action smack you in the chops while being entertained by our mate Henry who’ll be hosting the webcast. But we’ve already started having an office mass debate about who we think will win, so rather than bore you with our thoughts we thought we’d put it to the floor and see who you guys reckon will bag the TTR 6-Star title

To help you, we’ve scoured the internet for some examples of their skills. Turns out they’re all a bit tasty. Whodathunkit? Drop your prediction of who’ll walk away with the Ring of Glory in the comments and if you get it right and have luck with our Randomizer, we’ll send you an Onboard care package. You must post your prediction BEFORE THE CONTEST STARTS. We have ways of knowing if you cheat…

INVITED RIDERS

SEBASTIEN TOUTANT

MARK MCMORRIS

SEPPE SMITS

TORSTEIN HORGMO

NILS ARVIDSSON

MIKKEL BANG

ERIC WILLETT

ULRIK BADERTSCHER

MARKO GRILC

SAGE KOTSENBURG

ETHAN MORGAN

GJERMUND BRÅTEN

Or do you think one of the guys who’ll battle through the qualifiers will have enough to take it? There’s 4 spots in the main even for this lot: Jamie Nicholls, Ståle Sandbech, Torgeir Bergrem, Roope Tonteri, Kevin Backstrom, Petja Piiroinen, Yuki Kadono, Markku Koski, An Taehwan, Clemens Schattschneider and Charles Reid.

As we said, drop your tip for the title in the comments below  – BEFORE THE CONTEST STARTS – and we’ll pick a winner from the correct predictions on Monday.

[THE FULL HIGHLIGHTS EDIT IS NOW LIVE - CLICK HERE TO WATCH]

As you’ll no doubt have gathered by now, Seb Toutant won the Air&Style Beijing last Saturday, so now you can check out hit winning Cab double cork 12, along with second placed Seppe Smits’s back 12 and the third placed Elias Elhardt’s double back 10. You can also reacquaint yourself with what went down by checking our live blog of all the Air&Style Beijing action.

SEB TOUTANT

More Snowboarding Videos >>

SEPPE SMITS

MPORA Action Sports >>

ELIAS ELHARDT

MPORA Action Sports >>

We wish we could bring you Mikkel Bang’s über-styled backside rodeo stale. Just one flip? Yep, and sooooo slow. Awesome it was…

A new era in the Swatch TTR Tour history will start when Oakley presents the Air & Style in Beijing on the 4th of December 2010 in the Olympic Sports Center Stadium. It is set to be the first 6Star event in China. With the full size Air & Style 42m high stadium jump the riders will find perfect conditions to battle for the ring of glory and 1.000 TTR-Points. As always the Air & Style presents international top music acts to make it the unique and powerful happening it has been since 1994.