These YouTube soccerball people hooked up with British shredders Jamie Nicholls, Ben Kilner and Billy Morgan for a spot of snowboard football. As the footy’s a big part of Boxing Day back in the boys’ homeland, we figured it was as good a time as any to put it out there. Pretty darn sick.

British rider Billy Morgan is the first rider, at least that we’ve seen, put down a triple backside rodeo. Prepare for a barrage of flipping and a bit of spinning. Shitthebed, Billy!

Jamie Nicholls has rightly been turning heads in Europe for his increasingly impressive park and rail wizard-shit, but Britain is more that a one hit wonder when it comes to premium snowboarding talent. As you’ll know if you watched this video of Billy Morgan slaying Avoriaz last spring, you’ll know that this lad has the potential to blow minds (and blow chunks for that matter as the end of this Snowbombing video shows.)

But the other day Morgan proper sent it. He already had a pop at a triple backflip a few years ago at the Jib-Vid, which ended up with him exploding himself and breaking a rib, but at a park session in the US on Friday he took it to another level.

With buddy Ben Kilner in tow as camera guy, he warmed up pulling a couple of ‘regular’ double backside rodeos, Cab double underflips and backside double corked 10s before having a pop a a triple. You can see he’s feeling a bit of the fear when, with the adrenalin pumping, he asks: “You wouldn’t tell me to try it if you didn’t think I could do it?” he asks Kilner. “No, I swear to god,” is Ben’s comeback. And, goddammit, he was right. Billy stomps the hell out of it first try and even manages to dodge someone penguining in the landing.

Hats off Billy, you mental. That was insane.

Considering Jamie Nicholls edits are currently ten a penny I am convinced it would totally pay off if our beloved leaders from Mpora launched a jamienicholls.mpora.com website with daily updates from the universally beloved English shred. Or maybe they should call it Nichollodeon?

Up until then we have to step in and post whatever comes our way. Such as this fun edit from his time in Laax just a couple of days ago. Filmed by Salomon and including a guest appearance by Ben Kilner. Enjoy!

British pipe slayer Ben Kilner and stylemaster Scott McMorris decided that, rather than beeline it for the glaciers this summer they’d try something different. We were wondering why their Tweets were always like “great session on the treadmill this arvo” and “mellow 10k ride before breakfast” but then when we saw this it all made sense. Triathalon. These lot are now harder than Chuck Norris.

US Olympian Louie Vito training in Breckenridge. Photo: Cole Barash.

The majority of nations have made the final selection of who’ll go to Vancouver. See who’ll be flying the flag for you.

So there we were, tapping up our contacts at the various national snowboard organisations trying to get a definitive list of all the guys and girls who’ll be repping their countries in the pipe at the upcoming Olympics and, wouldn’t you know, our homies over at the Swatch TTR World Tour beat us to the punch. Thanks guys!

It must be said, it can often seem the selection process is more confusing than an algebra exam, with each country having different required criteria, and for the riders bidding to go it must certainly be a nerve-wracking experience waiting to see if all the points tally right and planets have aligned properly. But now, for most, the wait is over.

As ever there’s some big names who didn’t make it and some relative unknowns who did so, drum roll please, here’s who’s announced their pipe ninjas so far…

MEN

USA

Shaun White
Scotty Lago
Louie Vito
Greg Bretz

FINLAND

Peetu Piiroinen
Janne Korpi
Ilkka-Eemeli Laari
Markus Malin

FRANCE

Mathieu Crepel
Arthur Longo
Aluan Ricciardi
Gary Zebrowski

SWITZERLAND

Christian Haller
Iouri Podladtchikov
Markus Keller
Sergio Berger

NORWAY

Fredrik Austbø
Tore V. Holvik
Roger S. Kleivdal
Ståle Sandbech

CANADA

Jeff Batchelor
Justin Lamoureux
Brad Martin
Micheal Lambert

AUSTRALIA

Scott James
(15 year old youngest ever snowboarder to compete at a Winter Olympic Games.)
Ben Mates

GREAT BRITAIN

Ben Kilner

NEW ZEALAND

James Hamilton
Mitch Brown

GERMANY

Christophe Schmidt

WOMEN

USA

Gretchen Bleiler
Kelly Clark
Hannah Teter
Elena Hight

SWITZERLAND

Ursina Haller
Manuela Pesko

NORWAY

Kjersti Ø. Buaas
Linn Haug
Lisa H. Wiik

CANADA

Palmer Taylor
Sarah Conrad
Mercedes Nicolls

AUSTRALIA

Torah Bright

POLAND

Paulina Ligocka

NEW ZEALAND

Juliane Bray

Kendall Brown

Rebecca Sinclair

CZECH REPUBLIC

Sarka Pancochova

GREAT BRITAIN

Lesley McKenna

FRANCE

Sophie Rodriguez
Mirabelle Thovex

As you can see, Japan have yet to announce their team and they certainly have riders who can have a say in the final outcome, but them aside all the big hitters are accounted for. Check out over on the TTR webpage where you can see how those riders have been performing on the World Tour so you can have all the information possible when you head down the bookies’ to have a wee flutter.

Grenade UK catch up with Kildog – the only British male who’ll be repping it in the pipe at the Olympics – to get inside the youn Scot’s heed at the recent Burton European Open in Laax.

And, in case you missed it, here’s the first Grenade UK webisode where they follow Dan Wakeham at the O’Neill Evolution in Davos.

More Snowboarding >>