Cab 9s for days in this Burton Snowboards clip featuring Danny Davis, Mikkel Bang, Marko Grilc, Christian Haller, Mark McMorris, Seppe Smits, Peetu Piiroinen, and Roope Tonteri. Flat spins, cork spins, double cork spins, and even Seppe’s crazy spin-rewind thing all look good during these spring park sessions from last season.

1. Sebastien Toutant

2. Mark McMorris

3. Peetu Piiroinen

1. Torstein Horgmo

2. Mark McMorris

3. Sebastien Toutant

4. Peetu Piiroinen

5. Eric Willet

6. Gjermund Bråten

7. Sage Kotsenburg

8. Ståle Sandbech

The World Snowboard Tour is almost a wrap as The Arctic Challenge prepares to kick off in Oslo. This recap walks you through who’s won what so far, and contains some epic bib boarding to boot…

Look, it’s Mark McMorris pulling five tricks out of his wizard’s sleeve and whacking them down on a Breck booter like he’s just rocked up to a card table in Vegas with the intention of taking down the house.

Now that the US Open is all wrapped up, several of the World Snowboard Tour overall rankings have been decided and we can all relax and retreat from the edge of our seats. Rookie Ayumu Hirano takes the men’s pipe crown from under everyone else’s noses and, predictably, Kelly Clark takes top honours in the ladies’ halfpipe.

In just 21 short months, snowboarding’s favourite 4 foot Japanese 14 year old has rocketed 1247 places up the World Snowboard Tour rankings, and now trumps Lago and Vito for the year. With wins in Wanaka and Laax, backed up by second places in Vail and Aspen, Hirano has had a consistently impressive record recently, and nobody can deny he’s got the amplitude to tussle Shaun White for the limelight some time soon. Just look at him hanging out up there!

Clark takes her 61st win in the halfpipe, and 3rd World Snowboard Tour title, performing when it counted most to defend her spot at the top. Hannah Teter, Elena Hight and Arielle Gold have all pushed the girls’ level to new heights but Clark remains the most solid and her points reflect that.

Sarka Pancochova has been hard at it all year in both the pipe and slopestyle events, and a 4th place last week adds neatly to the points from her second place at the X Games to make her both ladies’ slopestyle champion and ladies’ overall champion. The girl’s got style, too

Mark McMorris has barely ever been off the podium recently, out-spinning his boy Horgmo on several occasions, and now takes home the Slopestyle title. Throwing out lazy triples whenever a GoPro is pointed his way – and not afraid to show what he’s got – even in a snowstorm, McMorris gets deserved recognition for a great year.

And that just leaves the men’s overall title to be decided at the last halfpipe event next week in Oslo at the Arctic Challenge. All eyes will be on second place local hero Ståle Sandbech – currently 135 points behind Peetu Piiroinen – who will be hoping to beat the Finn and retain the title. After Sebastian Toutant pipped him to the post for the Big Air title, Sandbech will be eager to prove himself but, as we all know, Peetu is a formidable competitor when his back’s to the wall. Stay tuned for our coverage of The Arctic Challenge to see how it all pans out.

When you’re done you can also watch the Burton US Open halfpipe podium runs.

MEN

1 – Mark McMorris

2 – Torstein Horgmo

3 – Chas Guldemond

WOMEN

1 – Spencer O’Brien

2 – Jamie Anderson

3 – Brooke Voigt

Oh, what a nice edit of Mark McMorris, Mikkel Bang, Seppe Smits, Roope Tonteri, Werni Stock, Marko Grilc, and Peetu Piiroinen slushing about at Heavenly and Sun Valley.

Usually spring is the time when most riders start to hang up their gear, but for riders like Mark McMorris, Mikkel Bang, Seppe Smits, Roope Tonteri, Werni Stock, Marko Grilc, and Peetu Piiroinen, it’s the time to start laying down the hammers. Those guys sure tore the spring kickers at Heavenly and Sun Valley a new one. Check out all the carnage in part 1 of the Spring Park Sessions.

After the triple-festing madness of the dudes’ Big Air there was no letup in the slopestyle. Once again, it looked like video games need to step up as the real world riders are doing things that you’d struggle with on your Xbox. Doubles mixed with triples were the norm, and Mark McMorris walked away with the title thanks to his last run that detonated over Aspen and scored a huge 98 points. It was also nice to see that despite not even coming close and their supposed ‘beef’, Shaun White was sporting enough to congratulate Mark on his win. In the women’s, Jamie Anderson once again continued her domination of female slopestyle riding, following up tree hugging with another display of silky smooth steeze. Sochi will be stupid.

MEN

1ST – MARK MCMORRIS

2ND – MAX PARROT

3RD – SEPPE SMITS

WOMEN

1ST – JAMIE ANDERSON

2ND – SARKA PANCOCHOVA

3RD – SPENCER O’BRIEN

The trash talking seems to have worked as Mark McMorris qualified in first spot for the X Games 2013 Slopestyle finals in Aspen, with Shaun White sneaking through in 7th. Watch the top 3 runs…

Ahead of this elimination round of X Games slope style, talk had been concentrated on the fact that Shaun White had been trying out the triple in training, while Mark McMorris had been laying his opinions about Shaun’s riding on the line. Well, McMorris stepped up to the plate and knocked a solid, yet for him safe, run out to slide into the finals in first. Shaun, erm, didn’t. But we wouldn’t rule him out just yet as his seventh place was good enough for him to have another stab at it when finals roll around.

[Never discount Peetu Piiroinen when things get serious. He made it through in 2nd with this belter.]

With some names you’d expect to see at the business end of a big contest like this failing to make the cut – notably Torstein Horgmo, Seb Toutant and Sage Kotsenburg – and others (like Halldor Helgason and Ulrik Badertscher) whose mentality is “first or last” coming closer to the latter, it was down to the reliable Peetu Piiroinen to send it into second, followed up by Canadian Max Parrot – fresh from his triple-stomping win at the O’Neill Evolution – in third.

[Max Parrot's run was good enough for 3rd in the qualifiers. And slopestyle snowboarding has gone bananas.]

The field of 16 riders was thus chopped down to eight who will go at it again in slopestyle finals on Saturday. Here’s the full list of who’s in, and who’s out. Oh, by the way, this video here is way better than all those above. We need more snowboarders like Halldor…

Elimination Results And Scores

1. Mark McMorris: 88.66

2. Peetu Piiroinen: 81.33

3. Max Parrot: 75.66

4. Seppe Smits: 72.00

5. Chas Guldemond: 70.00

6. Aleksander Oestreng: 68.66

7. Shaun White: 67.33

8. Gjermund Braaten: 62.00

—

9. Roope Tonteri: 46.66

10. Sebastien Toutant: 43.66

11. Stale Sandbench: 33.33

12. Halldor Helgason: 20.00

13. Torstein Horgmo: 19.66

13. Sage Kotsenburg: 19.66

14. Ulrik Badertscher: 14.00

15. Eric Willett: 10.00