Roope Tonteri is the winner of the Summer Rookie Fest 2010, a Swatch TTR 2-Star slopestyle with riders from 7 nations.

The finals went down on Friday 8 July in the Gentlemen’s Snowpark in Val Senales, Italy, at the end of the first Rookie Camp. It was the inaugural event of the World Rookie Tour 2010/11, which now heads to the southern hemi to Australia for another slopestyle contest,  and Chile for the first snowboard freeride youth event ever.

During the Rookie Camp and the slopestyle contest, the two times World Rookie Champion, Roope Tonteri from Finland stomped killer tricks like bs 1260 late cork, cab 1440, double rodeo and double front flip. With such an armory full of tricks, Roope will for sure bag himself many other good results in the next TTR contest, including the Air&Style Rookie Challange 2010 in Innsbruck, Austria, that he’s got an invite for after taking the WSF World Rookie Champion 2010 title.

Best grom of the event was Jakub Kral with front 720 and bs 720, while among the girls was Diana Augustinova, both from Czech Republic. Moreover, the program included also a skateboard contest and photo/video shooting with snowboard media.

The World Rookie Tour will now move in the Southern Hemisphere with slopestyle contests in Thredbo, Australia from 28 to 30 July, and a freeride edition in Valle Nevado, Chile from 13 to 23 August. More information about the upcoming World Rookie Tour events will be avaible on www.worldsnowboardfederation.org

Summer Rookie Fest 2010, Val Senales, Italy – Results

Rookies

1, Roope Tonteri, Finlandia
2, Martin Mikyska, Rep. Ceca
3, Mathias Weissenbacher, Austria
4, Alessandro Bonapace, Italia

Grom

1, Jakub Kral, Rep. Ceca
2, Daniel Porkert, Rep. Ceca
3, Benjamin Lestage, Svezia

Girls

1, Diana Augustinova, Rep. Ceca
2, Katerina Vojackova, Rep. Ceca
3, Birgit Rofner, Austria

Full ranks avaible on www.worldsnowboardfederation.org

The Summer Rookie Fest is organized by the World Snowboard Federation in collaboration with Board Riders and the Asociace Ceského Snowboardingu and made possible thanks to Nike6.0, Nitro, Snowpark.it, supported by Cableway Val Senales, Gentlemen’s Riders, Neuro, energized by Red Bull. You can watch it on Onboard European Snowboard Magazine, Board.TV, Free Magazine, Freeride.CZ, Snowpark.it and Entry.

Next International summer stops of the World Rookie Tour 2010.11

Australia Rookie Fest – Thredbo, Australia, Oceania – 2Star Slopestyle – 28.30 july 2010
Freeride Rookie Fest – Valle Nevado, Chile, South America – 2Star + Film Freeride Trip – 13.23 august 2010

For the two of you who did not follow all the action from Saturday’s Billabong Ante Up contest on our live webcast here are the results and a choice video, showing an astounding accumulation of Double Cork 1260s in a true park binge. Seb Toots took home the deserved victory. If you were planning on entering the circuit of professional snowboarding anytime soon you’d better step up your slopestyle skills – because the riding level has gone through the roof. The video is a must-see!

Alright then, here’s the offical pribble-prabble:

Boy do they look happy. Photo: Matt Forsythe

The Billabong Ante Up competition, the first 5Star event of the 2010/11 Swatch TTR World Tour season, went off this weekend with an excellent showing from a diverse field of riders.  The summertime event was held in the Camp of Champions park on the Blackcomb glacier and featured a massive 75-foot gap jump. The Ante Up hosted 40 riders in a big air format who were all going for a piece of the $50,000 prize purse and 850 TTR ranking points.  It ended up as an all-Canadian podium and Sebastien Toutant (CAN) took the top spot making him $20,000 richer. Toutant also secured the World No. 3 spot in the TTR World Rankings and received an automatic invite to the 6Star Billabong Air & Style Innsbruck later in the season.

Among a lot of other interesting things you can also see Seb Toots. Photo: Matt Forsythe.

Canadians defend their home turf with 1260 double corks

Every rider was pulling off impressive tricks all day and it came down to a double cork 1260 podium with the top three riders doing different variations of the trick. Toutant won the first place with a flawless Cab 1260 double cork and had this to say about his win, “Winning the first 5Star TTR big air contest was just amazing, it was an epic final and it’s sick because I’ll be in the top of the TTR rankings going down to New Zealand in August.”

Coming in second place behind Toutant and winning $10,000 USD was Matts Kulisek (CAN) who landed a frontside 1260 double cork and Mark McMorris (CAN) took third place earning $6,000 USD for his backside 1260 double cork.  Other notable mentions include Gjermund Braaten (NOR) who also stomped a backside 1260 double cork to take fourth place which, when combined with his 2009/10 season-end bonus points, bumped him up into TTR World No. 1.

More information on all things TTR here.

Shapers of competitive snowboarding's future.

As you may have noticed, last week the TTR drew event organisers, industry silverbacks, media moguls and more to Barcelona for their annual General Assembly. The most interesting upshoot was the announcement of the World Snowboard Championships that will go down once every four years, counterbalancing the Olympic cycle. So 2012 sees the first World Snowboarding Championships (proposed for Oslo, Norway), 2014 will be the Olympics in Sotchi, 2016 another WSC and so on.

To make sure you’re kept in the loop, here’s the skinny on that and the other moves that went down…

The annual TTR General Assembly 2010 took place from May 21st to 22nd, with a great turnout of snowboard sport representatives from around the globe who came together in Barcelona, Spain, to discuss the future of competitive snowboarding. For the second consecutive year, the annual meeting was held together with the World Snowboard Federation (WSF). Open workshops and meetings were held over a two day period in which a multitude of important topics were discussed between TTR and WSF members, snowboard industry representatives and media representatives with the objective to establish measures that will push the progression of competitive freestyle snowboarding and help take the sport to the next level.

Some of the key changes made for the upcoming season, as well as the future of the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour in general, are outlined below:

World Snowboarding Championships taking snowboarding a step further
Representatives of TTR Pro Snowboarding and the World Snowboard Federation jointly developed the concept of a new world-class snowboarding event over the past two years and it was voted to proceed with planning the World Snowboarding Championships. The World Snowboarding Championships will be held every four years and will feature men’s and women’s halfpipe and slopestyle disciplines. The first event is planned for the 2011/2012 season and will create an environment for the best freestyle riders to compete for world snowboarding champion titles in both halfpipe and slopestyle formats. With a unanimous vote at the TTR General Assembly 2010, the application of a Norwegian consortium to host the first event of its kind in Oslo in 2012 has been accepted by the TTR members. The final decision whether the event will take place is pending approval by the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment for the expansion plans of the event arena at Tryvann Vinterpark.

Preparations towards the World Snowboarding Championships
In preparation for a legitimate qualification system for the World Snowboarding Championship in 2012, the TTR has decided to introduce separate world rankings for halfpipe/quarterpipe and slopestyle/big air events. The two new lists will be generated for the combined formats in addition to the World Tour Rankings and will serve for qualification purposes. Further details on the concept will be released in the near future.

More value for riders ranked on the World Rankings
In an effort to add additional benefits for riders ranked on the World Rankings and provide more value to lower level events, the TTR Board of Directors has accepted a proposal to exclusively use the TTR World Rankings to select riders for all open spots in open qualifications at 5 and 6Star level events on the tour.

Improved communication with riders
As a rider-driven organization, it is one of TTR’s main objectives to communicate effectively with the athletes to inform them about important topics as well as supplying them with all relevant event information. In order to do so, TTR will be improving its rider hospitality services in a joint effort with the events to ensure a good communication flow between all parties.

A stronger women’s leg on the TTR Tour
Developing women’s snowboarding in co-operation with WSF is a project that aims to strengthen the women’s leg of the Swatch TTR Tour and to create more coverage for women athletes. By building up the women’s events and strengthening the female portion of mixed-gender events, as well as ramping up the publicity of the women on the TTR Tour, WSF and TTR hope to attract more female riders to join the tour and create a better opportunity for the progression of the female side of the sport. The TTR will also look into a proposal to adapt the point scale for women in the next months.

These changes and initiatives were discussed and approved by the TTR members and the TTR Board of Directors during the Annual General Meeting in Barcelona.