Snowboarders from around the world made the trip to Beijing for the first major event of the Swatch TTR season, where they put on a spectacular display of top-level snowboarding for a crowd of excited Chinese fans. The snowboarders were pleased with the massive gap jump setup built out of scaffolding, which had riders dropping in from 40 meters above the ground in the Olympic Sports Center Stadium. The Air & Style events feature a unique head-to-head format and Sebastien Toutant, who won the event with a Cab 1260 double cork, overtook Smits in the final round beating his respectable backside 1260 for second place. Sebastien Toutant was ecstatic saying, “It’s awesome, I think it’s by far the best moment of my life, for sure. My first 6Star win, I’m stoked to be in China for the first time. Couldn’t have been better than to win the event today!” Elhardt was awarded third place for his backside 1080 double cork.With his win Toutant advanced in the TTR World Rankings to the World No. 3 position. Another young gun, Seppe Smits (BEL), took the second place podium spot and Elias Elhardt (GER) took the third place position.

Read the Minute-By-minute Report of the first Air&Style in China. And now you can watch Toutant’s winning zinger.

Welcome to those of you who can’t watch the action live, or who just want to know what a couple of hacks who should really be riding pow make of this 6-Star TTR shazammer in Beijing.

As you may have seen, we made the rather bold move of putting our reputations on the line, err, online yesterday by giving our predictions of how the first round of face-offs would pan out.

Well, it’s happened already and we missed it. Awesome. How’s that for informed professionalism. But as we said we really should be riding pow…

Happily some dudes at Transworld have tweeted the results of the first round of eliminations so we already know that we got some predictions right, but some wrong… Here’s how it panned out:

- Peetu beat Halldor, but word is Halldor stoked the crowd out with a backflip. Guess he wasn’t feeling it. We called this one wrong.

- Elias knocked out Kazu. Again, we’re wrong.

- Werni Stock wins against Staale Sandbech. The odds must have been against him, but hell yeah we called that one right.

- Lago beat Andreas Wiig. Wooha. Got that right as well.

- Seppe Smits knocks out Gjermund Braaten. Bigups to the flatlander, boos for us getting that one wrong.

- Seb Toutant has too much for Marku Malin. Got that one right.

- Janne beats out Eric Willett. Again, wrong call Onboard…

- Mikkel Bang advances ahead of Marko Grilc. Wahey, another right call for us.

To be honest we’d have had just as much luck flipping a coin as using our supposed deep knowledge of the shred. We got half right. Or half wrong if you’d prefer…

Here’s what the second round of eliminations looks like..

Peetu vs. Smits; Elhardt vs. Lago; Werner vs. Toutant; Korpi vs. Bang

Henry Jackson’s on the mic, the semis are about to kick off, so lets sit back and see what happens….

12.34

Warm up is on. The boys putting down some styley stompers before the huckfest begins. Do they have a ‘style’ jump at this gig? Hope so or there should be… Apparently Shaun is in the house, but not riding. Which is nice of him…

The kicker’s looking decent and there seems to to be some good noise coming from the crowd. We’re also looking forward to hearing Henry’s chat throughout this, and if Werni gets a good run on we can guarantee he will go frickin mental. Unleash Sebastian!

Henry’s let us know it’s 3 runs, best trick counts. Alas, no style jump. But 100k up for grabs for the winner to get wild with.

JUMP 1

Peetu v Seppe

- Peetu drops first in his green camo of power… and a perfect, huge back 10 late cork mute. He really does have them on lock.

- Seppe, back 12 with a bit of a double cork but slips out on the landing to end up bellysliding the last bit of the landing. Peetu will be ahead.

Elias v Lago

Elias drops first and unleashes a fucking awesome back 10 double. Impossible to do better, and unlike many who’s versions of this trick are more late corks, this was nicely doubled.

What’s Lago got to follow that? Switch back 12 but with a revert. Elias will have this first round of three, but Lago’s got 2 more hits to nail it.

Werni v Toutant

Conquerer of Mount Sandbech, Werni drops first and scrubs the take off a little on his switch back 9, looks good in the air and scabs the landing.

The man known as Toots is on fire. As Henry’s saying, coming back from his horror slam at last year’s Air&Style took some sack, but he just got back on the horse without any fuss, and has just made a back 10 look like the easiest trick in the world. That’s just a warm up for the Toots and he’s in the lead.

Janne v Bang

Janne goes first and whirrs through a back 10, but reverts. Not enough, wethinks.

Does Mikkel do a Toots and take it easy? Nah, he’s the Bang with the bang, so steps up and nails the perfect switch back 12. No problemo and no messing with that.

JUMP 2

Peetu v Smits

Back to the top for the first duo again. They give each other some bro love and Peetu goes first and stomps a back 12. Hand touched the snow, but he’s still pumping them arms.

Can Seppe land his back 12? Someone drop ‘Under Pressure’… Fuck me, he went frickin huuuuuuge. Sent way down the landing and no hand even near the snow. That’s gotta be Seppe in the lead or I will eat my scarf. 91.67. Knocked the back out of it!

Elias v Lago

Elias has a front 10 melon with some nice poke. Not massive, but good to see something different to backside or switch backside spins.

Scotty’s gotta up his game here, but he got bronze at the OG so he’s used to pressure… Switch double back rodeo sent deeeep, but too deep and his legs cant take the landing and skins to arse. One more try Scotty. Elias still leads from his first jump.

Werni v Toutant

Toots goes first as he’s in the lead after jump 1. No idea what that was! A spinning, flipping blur. Cab double 12 Henry informs us. That was a frickin bucketload of aweseome and stomped. Sorry, Werni. Can’t see him topping that… Make us wrong Stockatron!

Werni’s looking focussed. Droppin switch… switch back 12 to slam on the back. Maybe nerves got to him a bit, but to be fair, how do you respond to what Toots just did? Toots posted 92 for his mentalism. Highest score of the day…

Bang v Korpi

Ohhhhhhhh. Bang just made my day. Huuuuuuuuuge backside rodeo stale. Super slow and nothing to do with hyperspinning. Props, Mikkel.

Will Janne follow Bang’s style lead? Nope. Back 12 with a touch of the hand and was 45 degrees short but reverted. He needed to get one in the bag though. And the judges didn’t like the Korpi trick, and loved Mikkel’s slow styley radness. That, right there, is great judging.

JUMP 3

Seppe v Peetu

Seppe’s in the lead and it is business time. Super smooth, floaty cab 10. Perfect landing. Fuck yeah for flatlanders. Peetu’s got some work to do…

Clean, big back 10 late cork with the smoothest landing you’ll see. And went into orbit too. But we reckon Peetu’s off for an early bath… and he is. Belgium GO NUTS! Seppe’s in the super final!

Elias v Lago

Elias is in the lead and sitting pretty having landed both previous tricks, and makes it 3 from 3 landing yet another perfect back 10 double cork. Scotty Lago’s got it all to do here now…

What’s he got then? Can Lago pull a stomper out the bag at the last and make things interesting? He drops… and switch back 10 to arse means Elias Elhardt joins Seppe Smits in the superfinal. Booya!

Toutant v Werni

Toots about to drop, 2-0 up in this heat and looking like he’s sitting pretty having stomped a banger just before. And now he stomps a back 12 mute perfect. This kid is too good.

C’mon Werni, do it for the Zillertal! He lands his switch back 10, but wheelies out and hand drags so that’s Werni out. Toots is in the final. And there’s Shaun White surrounded by police and dressed like an airline pilot. A strange look.

Bang v Korpi

Bang’s 2 up here but he’s been perhaps harshly scored for his switch back 12. Who cares, he’s still taking it with that killer back rodeo as it stands. What’s he got this time? Cab 10 to arse bounce means Janne still has a look in this one.

Janne. If he can put one down strong here he can take Bang from behind… he looks like he had it dialled in the air but went over the nose on the landing, almost into a headspin. Well, not really. But Bang goes through.

So, for the super finals, it’s Seppe Smits, Elias Elhardt, Seb Toutant & Mikkel Bang who’ll be throwing down. And everyone apart from Seppe lead from the get go, while Seppe came from behind and posted one of the highest scores of the day to do so.

SUPERFINAL START LIST

1 – Mikkel Bang

2 – Elias Elhardt

3 – Seppe Smits

4 – Seb Toutant

Mikkel will drop first and Toots, having landed that humdinger to post the highest score so far, drops in the shred equivalent of pole position – last.

SUPERFINALS

We’re not quite sure what the deal for these finals is. We’re backing 3 jumps each with no more face-offs. Oi, Jackson! Fill us in!

JUMP 1

Mikkel is strapping in and cranking up the ratchets. 3 runs to make it count and go one better than he did in Munich in 2007. Drooooping. Stomped switch back 12 right down the bottom of the landing. Yeah he touched his hands a little but he only had a couple metres of trannie left before the flat. Fackin sick mate. 79 points. Judges musta hated hard on the hand drag.

Elias nearly kills himself on the run in and then pulls possibly his best back 10 double with some uber-poke. Hand down though, so again the judges might bah-humbug that bad boy. 84 points, and into first.

Seppe’s up and we can almost hear Belgium from here. Perfect back 12 mute. That’s gotta be first. No hands, sent to the bottom. Argh, hand tickle in the landing, lets see the judges thoughts… … … 91.67 WAAAAAAAAAH!

Toutant up. Was just about to write something about how he’ll stomp some awesome but it all went horribly wrong on take off. We were thinking holy fuck he’s in trouble, opened fully out upside down and flailing as he was, but somehow he pulled it back in and the slam wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He’s hurting, though.

JUMP 2

Bang’s back up the stairs. No lift for these guys? Damn, my legs would be done after doing that once, let alone riding, but then that’s why I’m typing, not riding. And I’m shit too. “What’s the deal?” calls out Bang. He wants this… Cab 10. Nowhere near as big as he went on his first hit, and a couple of hands down. He’ll need to do better, but think he just offered the dolly birds a three way later, so all good.

Elias is locked and loaded. Front 10.5. Didn’t get round as he was after the front 12. A throwaway from the German…

Seppe sends a monster 12, clears the landing almost, but scabs to arse. He’s still our glorious leader of the People’s Republic of Air&Style Superfinal.

How’s Toots gonna deal with the confidence buster he suffered on his first jump. FUCK OFF! Cab double 12, stomped to perfection. Hands no where near the snow. He must be in first. Here is the fist of nuff respect from us, and everyone else who saw that. Great big Canadian balls were on show right there… 93 points, and in 1st.

So ahead of the last hit, it’s 1 – Toots, 2 – Seppe, 3 – Elias, 4 – Bang. The riders not contesting this super final have just machine gunned a rapid fire hit with Mark McMorris popping a sweet back 10 double. That’s for fun, but now things get serious again. Bidnezz time. Who’s gonna beat Toots’s 93? I’m gonna claim no one. That trick is the Balls of Beelzebub.

JUMP 3

Danny here’s just posed the question: what’s Bang going to pull out the bag here? Will the switch back 12 even without a hand drag be enough? My 3 month old son is here too and he’s pumped. What do you think Louis? lhjbdFLKBDJLVohndkljn9inaba&*^. Awesome, cheers Lou Dog. Kids maybe shouldn’t be put to work.

Toots… perfect back 10 double so you figure he’s got nothing more in the can than the cab 12 double and is content to let the others have the stress. Understandable really.

Can Seppe pull the most unbelievable win perhaps ever out of his Belgian bag? Switch drop in… caaaaab 7, no grab, looked like he was having trouble on the run in but might very well hold on to 2nd place, which is still nothing to be ashamed of.

Unless Elias or Bang can up their game. Elias is up. Can he get his 12 here? Or does he sit pretty and enjoy the last run? Slooow back 10 double but arses out and SEPPE MAKES THE PODIUM!

Now, last guy to drop. Mikkel Bang. Has he had enough, figuring he can’t top Toots’s cab 12 double? He’s giving it the disco hands… drops aaaaand switch back 12! But I think he’s hand dragged his long arms and that’s probably 3rd for the Bang. What do I know. 83.33 and 4th for Bang.

At the end of the first ever stadium Big Air bonanza on Chinese soil, after some hella heavy snowsliding here are the final results:

1 – Seb Toutant

2 – Seppe Smits

3 – Elias Elhardt

4 – Mikkel Bang

Toots deservedly takes his first of what, going on this performance, could be many 6-Star TTR wins this season and showed some mad sack, coming back from a nightmare of a first jump to put it down where it mattered. Almost stealing the show was the phenomenal performance of Belgian rookie Seppe Smits, who blew everyone’s mind and came in only on the virtue of winning last year’s Rookie Challenge, taking down Gjermund and reigning TTR champ Peetu in the process. That boy’s one to watch for sure. Sure, it was a shame there was not more of the Style that Bang’s back rodeo hinted we might get, and there were too many backside spins, but all in all we still enjoyed that. Just please include a style jump at the next one. Please.

So that’s all folks. The boys, though good snowboarders, are clearly crap at Champagne spraying as the booze isn’t flying, it’s just tricking out the bottles, but it surely will be later tonight. Or even now, as the ‘Chinese Justin Timberlake’ gets the party started. It’s all too much for us.

As Terry Tibbs would say… Thank you goodnight. Much love.

The show is scheduled to go down between 12.30 and 1400 CET and for those of you who can’t watch it live, or who just want to know what we’re making of it all, we’ll hopefully be doing a live Minute-By-Minute blog of what’s going down. (Disclaimer – MBM dependent on technical logistics, staffing issues, and amount of powder on the local mountain.)

Here’s how the first round of face-offs is gonna go down…

1 – Marco Grilc vs. Mikkel Bang
2 – Peetu Piroiinen vs. Haldor Helgasson
3 – Andreas Wiig vs. Scotty Lago
4 – Werner Stock vs. Stale Sandbech
5 – Elias Elhardt vs. Kazuhiro Kokubo
6 – Markus Malin vs. Seb Toutant
7 – Gjermund Braaten vs. Seppe Smits
8 – Janne Korpi vs. Eric Willett

Who do you reckon will make it through? Calling those 8 rounds of potential snowboarding El Clásicos is a tough call, but seeing as we put it out there we’ll give you our predictions…

1 – Grilo won the Innnsbruck gig last year with a couple of regular and switch double 10s; Bang bagged 2nd as a rookie in 2007 and is one of the few riders who can make switch back 12s look good… We’re thinking there’ll be a lot of people doing double backside 10s, so if he can put the switch back 12 down we’ll go with Mikkel Bang.

2 – Peetu is the reigning TTR World Tour Champ after slaying it consistently last season, but Halldor won the X-Games Big Air with a perfect score. Again, tough to call but we reckon Halldor Helgason will take this one.

3 – Andreas has some hammers in his bag for sure, but after seeing Lago’s second or third try switch double backside rodeo 10 in the Smith webisode yesterday, we’d have to say Scotty Lago for this tie.

4 – Damn, this is hard. Staale’s deservedly got some hype around him right now and we gave him an interview. But we know Werni’s got the bang bangs on lock too and we saw him working on the switch back 12. Jeez, why’d we do this? Ok, we’re guessing Staale will be the punters’ favourite in this heat so we’ll back Werni Stock to get the better odds.

5 – Elias can put down the double cork back 10 like clockwork and comes in on a high from winning the Pleasure Jam, but will he have enough if Kazu turns it up to 12? Kazu doesn’t seem shy of putting it all on the line and if for nothing else he deserves our support due to his sterling ‘controversy’ at the Olympics. Kazuhiro Kokubo for this heat.

6 – Markus has some mad skills to be sure, but we’re gonna have to go with Seb Toutant in this round. He does those Tootsie Roll 12s of his just a bit too well, and after a summer of airbagging down under we reckon he could have more in the can if the shit hits the fan.

7 – Awesome as it is for a flatlander to get in this gig, we have to say that after witnessing the stompers he put down to win Freestyle.CH, we’re backing Gjermund Braaten to get through here. Ain’t no messing with that back 12 double of his.

8 – Janne is super consistent and a seasoned competitor, but that young buck Willett has really impressed since he burst on the scene. If the occasion gets to him it could be a different story, but our money’s on Eric Willett to nudge his way past the Finn and into the next round.

Shoot, that was frickin’ tough. Well, we’ll see how right or wrong our calls are tomorrow from 12. Looking forward to this bad boy…

Peetu killing it at last year's event in Innsbruck

The Air&Style just announced the dates for this season’s Air&Style events:

December 4th, 2010 in Beijing

and

February 5th, 2011 in the Bergisel Stadium in Innsbruck

For the first time ever, the Air&Style event is moving East, to be precise to the Olympic Sports Center Stadium in Beijing. The event presented by Oakley and Shaun White will be the first 6Star event in China, heralding a new era for the TTR World Tour. 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. And as we’re used to, there will also be international top music acts to make it the unique and powerful happening it has been since 1994.

Next to the following provisional start list that will be announced soon, there will also be six spots for Chinese riders to qualify.

For more info on both events, check out air-style.com

The 8th edition of the Red Bull Nanshan Open went down last month, with Finnish rippertron Juuso Laivisto nailing the winning run, and now we’ve got video highlights of the contest.

The setup this year looked pretty nice, with smooth, medium sized kickers, jibs and a back-atcha feature at the bottom to reward the riders who’d made the long trip. Though there’s a shed load of 9s, it’s worth watching for Chinese chicks in white skinsuits alone.