What a night! Due to some very clever Olympia media dudes the Men’s Halfpipe Finals went down in the middle of the night (also referred to as ‘stupid-o-clock’) over here on this side of the big pond, but our news team of course was neither shocked nor stopped by this and set up a little media hub fuelled with beers, live stream and internet frenzy.

The main info you want now is this: Shaun White went bigger than anyone else and bagged his second Olympic gold medal, followed by reigning TTR World Champ Peetu Piiroinen in silver and Scotty Lago in third, scoring bronze.

Should you have fallen asleep somewhere in the course of the qualification to the finals or had any other reason (like getting up for work) holding you back from watching the action live, we have an epic minute-by-minute report of last night’s event for you.

But even if you watched it yourself – read it anyway, it’s just hilarious and includes expert commentary by various snowboard editors and photographers, Jenny Jones and a fair bit of web chaos craziness…

onboard.mpora.com/mens-olympic-halfpipe-minute-by-minute-report

Photo: Frode Sandbech

Normally killing rails round about his hometown Stockholm, the Swede with the oriental sounding name has now spread his realms over the big pond all the way to Vancouver and joined the Endeavor team.

This is what Kareem had to say: “For me snowboarding is an art form where you can express your own view of snowboarding through your tricks, your style and the different ways you can ride the terrain you come across. I’m really stoked to be on Endeavor. I instantly vibed with the boards and I am stoked on the people running it. They are a 100 per cent rider-driven snowboard company with roots in my favorite places on earth, Whistler and Vancouver.”

endeavorsnowboards.com

Photo: James Holm

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.