Watch the video of yesterday’s pipe contest at the O’Neill Evlution, where Gian Simmen took 6th in his last competitive outing, and protégés Verena Rohrer and Jan Scherrer reign supreme.

In what turned out to be an emotional and significant send-off, Swiss snowboard legend, Gian Simmen, stood the test of time by scoring a solid 6th place in his last competitive event here at the O’Neill Evolution in Davos, while two of his young protégés, Verena Rohrer (SUI) and Jan Scherrer (SUI), took out the Women’s and Men’s 5 Star World Snowboard Tour Halfpipe titles respectively.

Men’s pipe winner Jan Scherrer. All photos: Danny Burrows.

Today in Davos, snowboarding was witness to a changing of the guard. As Swiss legend Gian Simmen bowed out of competitive snowboarding, two more stepped up to the plate with eyes on carrying his torch into the future. The vibe here was all time. Read what went down…

It was an emotional day here in Davos on the four day of the O’Neill Evolution. As well as being the finals of both the women’s and men’s pipe, it was also the last contest that homeboy and Olympic gold medalist Gian Simmen would compete in: A swan song to a 23-year career in snowboarding, which has seen him win his fair share of medals and praise.

Gian still has the skills. Back 5 to 6th place in his last ever contest.

He described it as being “like the closing of a circle”. It was here that he first strapped in; it was in Davos that he won his two World Championships; and it would be here that backside 5s, front 7s, Cab 7s, a front 900, stalefishes and a massive Backside Air would place him sixth in the pipe finals.

Gian Simmen and Mini Simmen.

The start list for both the girls and boys pipe were not what they might have been, as the über pros were in Canada chasing the Olympic dream. Their loss, as the pipe was on form, there was a little pow on the hill and they had left the field open for the strong local contingent of rippers and smattering of internationals.

Celia Miller.

It would be true to say that the girls competition was far from being the best pipe final ever seen in the history of snowboarding but there were a few highlights, including a handplant by American Celia Miller, which raised a cheer from the gathered media and crowd. For many of the girls competing it was the first pipe contest that they had entered. Local lass Verena Rohrer was pretty stoked and a little surprised by taking the number one spot, which according to the TTR rankings has pushed her up to third place in the Pipe table. She summed it up pretty well: “I’m really blow away with this win. I didn’t really have any expectations when I arrived in Davos, I only wanted to put my run on the ground and let people see what I can do.” She was closely followed onto the podium by Clemence Grimal and 39-year-old Akiko Miwa from Japan.

Yannick Imboden.

The Swiss also topped the table in the men’s contest with Jan Scherrer giving it his all to earn himself the lion’s share of the winnings. He put down two solid runs and a victory lap, that included tricks of the caliber of back 9 mute, Front 10 Tail and Front 9s. “This is the biggest result of my career,” after receiving a chilling Champaign face shot from second place Kyle Mack and Japanese ripper Hiroki Suwas, who came third, “and it’s pretty special to do it at home here in Davos.”

Post-event release for Jan Scherrer and Kyle Mack.

Tomorrow’s offerings include the qualifications for Big Air as well as rounds one and two of the contest real. Stay tuned!

The Austrian resort’s epic superpipe will be open for business of usual from December 15, so they’ve dropped the pipe edit from Nitro’s Hyped! to show how awesome it is. With Markus Keller and Jan Scherrer sending it, awesome it indeed is. Here are the deets…

Kitzsteinhorn superpipe opens December 15, 2012!

Early gift-giving at Kitzsteinhorn: the super-pipe season at Snowpark Kitzsteinhorn will kick off right before Christmas! The Kitzsteinhorn snowpark crew is working flat out to complete Austria’s largest pipe monster as soon as possible. Pipe master Alli Zehetner is responsible for the erection of the superpipe, which requires more than 25,000 m³ of snow. The 160-metre long half-pipe with its 6.30-metre high walls will be open daily between 9 am and 3 pm from December 15, 2012. The Easy Park will open on the same day.

Have yourselves a first look at footage for the Swoosh’s three-part team video project, cunningly titled The Nike Snowboarding Project. Wallop!

Before we start waxing lyrical about Nike’s video project, look out for Peetu’s backside air towards the end of this. DOUBLE WALLOP!

Nike, it’s fair to say, are not short of a bob or two and have assembled one of the finer, all-round-ripping-from-street-to-backcountry-to-contests-to-pipe kinda teams on the planet. Look at the names, just LOOK at them. They’ve also enlisted the help of three of snowboarding’s finest filmmaking lensemen to produce three short films – Joe Carlino, Brad Kremer and Justin Hostynek – and this here is the teaser for them. A mish mash of heavy riding and dicking around that, like the team, looks like it’ll have all aspects of the shred covered.

Each filmer hooked up with a particular crew of riders and the results will be released over the coming weeks. Here’s the deets and dropping dates:

16.10.2012 – A short film by Joe Carlino. Featuring the riding of Johnnie Paxson, Jess Kimura, Halldor Helgason, Justin Bennee and Jed Anderson.

13.11.2012 – A short film by Brad Kremer. Featuring the riding of Sage Kotsenburg, Louie Vito, Gjermund Braaten, Jamie Nicholls, Danny Kass, Ethan Morgan, Jan Scherrer, Peetu Piiroinen and Austin Smith.

11.12.2012 – A short film by Justin Hostynek. Featuring the riding of Gigi Ruf, Nicolas Muller, Danny Kass and Eric Jackson.

Check out the latest at NikeSnowboarding.com/getlacedup

The humble Onboard editorial telephone was on the ground at the recent Nike Chosen Sessions in Silvretta Montafon and recorded some stunts from the assembled ranks of the Nike pro team and the talented ams. And with a bit of spare time and some jiggling with the iMovie app, this is the 3.5 minutes of cellularmatic gold dust that came out…

Check out this gallery of some of the shots our humble editorial iPhone has snapped over this past winter, and follow us on Instagram (@onboardmag) for more of the same.

We couldn’t help but notice that Instagram was bought the other day for the princely sum of $1 billion virtual Facebook credits (or something), and once we’d finished wondering how something that makes no money could be worth so much it reminded us that we’d been meaning to share some of the shots we, ourselves, have been firing out through the photosharing social network.

‘Gramming’ has swiftly become the new buzzword of riders and media alike this winter, so make sure you follow us (@onboardmag) as we’ll be posting a bunch more on-the-ground shots as well as classic archive photos from here on in.

The 3rd and final Chosen Session put the AMs back on familiar Chosen Series winning territory with a straight out kicker session.

The perfectly shaped 20m Kicker got a proper working as the AMs stepped up and mixed in with the Nike team, digging deep into their bags and pulling out some of the best AM riding seen all week.

Tune In Take Part and Vote by visiting nikechosensessions.com and watching each AM’s Big Air edit and then vote for your favourite rider.

The last edit of the haps at Nike’s Vapen Session in Norway is live and direct, and the crew set about sending it in the pitch black. The wallride/pole jam session on the last day is also pretty dope. Peepit.

Hitting a 90 foot jump in the middle of the night might not be on everybody’s mind.

To get the perfect shot the team goes beyond their limits and nails banger after banger in pitch black light.

On the last day after an exhausting week it’s time for pleasure, the team has a fun session on a wallride and Halldor finishes the week with the best trick on the polejam.

To find out more about the boot that inspired the Vapen Sessions go to: nike.com/​vapen

Nike did it again. I mean, literally: The second year in a row they took their team of riders to Norway, filmed all the action and produced a teaser. It’s the shiznit!

Every snowboarder dreams about the perfect season ender. In late spring 2011 the Nike snowboard team gathered in beautiful Strandafjellet in Norway for their annual team shoot. Traveling with boats through Viking country Halldor and the full crew where joined by legends like Nicolas Muller and Gigi Ruf for a week of snowboarding in a fun and relaxing way.

The land of the Vikings was also the perfect place to test the new Nike Vapen snowboard boot.

See how this came along in the Nike “Vapen” sessions, a series of videos based on fun, camaraderie and insane snowboarding.

A few days ago Halldor Helgason, Jamie Nicholls, Jan Scherrer and Silje Norendal went on a little secret mission. The team visited three indoor domes in two countries in three days. The visits were announced only through Facebook and Helgasons.com. Lots of kids showed up and the 6.0 team had an amazing time. Apparently there are more guerilla marketing things planned. Better keep your eyes peeled…