It’s that time again – buckle up for your Monday lunchtime dose of stoke. The World Snowboarding Tour are back with another history lesson for all of us young’ns who don’t know nothin about our founding fathers. And since this is the end of the curriculum, there will be an exam afterwards.

Charles Reid

Riders from all over the World flocked to Andorra this weekend for the ninth Edition of the Grandvalira Total Fight. This year the Total Fight upgraded to 5 stars on the World Snowboard Tour making it one of the season’s most anticipated slopestyle events.

[Qualification highlights - Finals video to follow.]

This year’s slopestyle started off with a rail zone which consisted of a choice between a 6 metre rail or a rail king, followed by a down box with a 5 metre gap or a wallride, followed by the line of three kickers. All the riders had to show their best skills on the varying spring conditions to win the final prize.

Eric Willett

The weather was temperamental for today’s finals; a mixture of snow, rain, wind and sun accompanied the riders throughout the day. The 24 finalists were pitched against each other in pairs, with only two rounds to prove their skills and knock out their rivals. The pairing, which depended on the previous day’s scores, went as such: Janne Korpi against Seth Hill, Tor Lundstrom against Brage Richenberg, Jon Versteeg against Eric Willett, Jeremy Thompson against Charles Reid, Marco Grigis against Aleksi Partanen, Simon Gruber against Ville Uotila, Tyler Nicholson against Spencer Link, Ian Thorley against Eric Beauchemin, Peter Horak against Mans Hedberg, Robby Balharry against Nuuti Niemela, Kevin Backstrom against Simen Neraker and Kevin Kok against Markku Koski. The 12 riders who made it to the final were: Seth Hill, Brage Richenberg, Eric Willett, Charles Reid, Aleksi Partanen, Ville Uotila, Tyler Nicholson, Eric Beauchemin, Mans Hedberg, Nuuti Niemela, Kevin Backstrom and Kevin Kok.

Seth Hill

Thanks to mother nature’s shaky mood today, the weather got wilder and wilder making the visibilty close to zero, meaning that, despite the shapers hard work, the slopestyle was getting slower and the finalists couldn’t make it to the jumps. Just as it looked like the weather was getting her way and ending the Total Fight prematurely, the sun came out and the competition continued. Unfortunately, the tardiness meant that the judging system had to be changed and the 12 finalists only had two rounds to win the competition.

Kevin Backstrom

This year’s hands down Grandvalira Total Fight 2013 winner was the Canadian Charles Reid, who won with a spectacular round which started off with a Gap Front 270 Front Board followed by a Gap Front Boad to Fakie, Cab Double Cork Mute 900 and sweetly polished off with a Back Rodeo 5 Melon.

The American Willett came close to the Canadian with a round that started off with a Front 270 Front Board followed by a Front Board, Front Mute and finished by a Back Rodeo 5 Melon. Swedish star Kevin Backstrom came third with a solid run: a Gap Front Lip followed by a Backside 50-50 Front 180 Off, Cab 900 Melon and finished by a Back 720 Mute.

Charles Reid

22-year-old Charles Reid, a resident of Mont-Tremblant (Quebec, Canada) said:

“It feels pretty good to get up on the podium and win first prize, even more so when it’s a TTR event like this. I didn’t expect to win the competition but I had a lot of confidence in my tricks. The circuit was incredible, you could get a lot of speed, it was really good. I’ll be back next year for sure!”

The first fifteen winners shared 40.000 € of cash between them. The first three won 15.000 €, 10.000 € and 5.000 € respectively.

Winners podium

RESULTS

NAME / COUNTRY / SPONSOR / HIGHEST SCORE

1 – Charles Reid / CAN / Oakley / 84.67
2 – Eric Willett / USA / Vans / 82.33
3 – Kevin Backstrom / SWE / Nike / 73.33
4 – Eric Beauchemin / USA / DC / 69.00
5 – Tyler Nicholson / CAN / Lib Tech / 65.00
6 – Nuuti Niemela / FIN / Smith / 58.67
7 – Aleksi Partanen / FIN / Koli / 55.00
8 – Ville Uotila / FIN / Dye / 52.33
9 – Kevin Kok / ITA / Burn / 46.00
10 – Seth Hill / USA / Sims / 39.67
11 – Brage Richenberg / NOR / Sabotage / 31.67
12 – Mans Hedberg / SWE / DC / 28.33

The latest instalment of the World Snowboard Tour’s look at the history of competitive snowboarding is live, and totally worth watching. 

This time attention is on The Arctic Challenge, the establishment of the Ticket To Ride system where winning other major events would grant a spot to ride at TAC, and the subsequent creation of the TTR World Tour and its tier system that intended to offer a rookie to pro route within the realms of contest riding.

The good people of the World snowboarding tour are back with yet another chapter of snowboarding’s sweet history. They obviously felt that a generation of young shredders was emerging with no understanding of the hurdles these old punks hurdled to get us to where we are now. And they’re jolly well going to sit us down and school us on what we missed, with a history lesson every week to fill the void of ignorance in our vacant young brains. Open your books at chapter three, class, entitled Jim Rippey to Steffan Gimpl. Buckle up for the raddest history lesson you’ve ever had. Fingers crossed they’ll eventually uncover the secrets to untangling the maze that is WST points system. For now, be content with the first flip with a spin and the creation of the X Games. And – as if that might not be enough for one edit – girls too! Doing sweet jumps. And spins. Wowzers.

Ever get tired of old dudes saying snowboarding was rock-and-roll-er before you were born? Such words are usually dismissable as insta-filtered sepia nostalgic moaners remembering when their bones didn’t ache. They came from an age where it was feasible to be riding at a level that was still on the same richter scale as the guys winning the medals and gracing the cover Onboard. Surely the simple fact that our toes are warmer and our hands drier now than your dad’s were ‘in the good old nineties’ must be directly proportional to us having more of a laugh. Charlie sheen’s not the only one winning right now. No doubt sliding sideways must have tasted sweeter knowing that cranky old skiers hated you for lowering the tone of their snobby resorts – never a kid has lived who didn’t love to buck the system. But just because people were just winging it over sketchy kickers on shapeless planks with bodge job home school bindings and out the sides of lumpy ditches doesn’t mean any of us would trade decades.

On the other hand, it’s hard to conceive the level of wonder in the minds of the kids when the first inverts got landed, or the rumpus that the Nagano olympics caused. Double mac 12s were kind of amazing in Vancouver for all of half an afternoon, and Horgmo’s X Games triple in 2011 must have caused a roar almost audible on the other side of Aspen. But the first back flip to fakie would have embedded itself into peoples’ minds for months if not years, and every time those dudes were in the air people really didn’t know what else could be done. Or even on what axis to do it. And nowadays, with our highbacks and superpipes and our youthful arrogance we all didn’t just assume someone would do a double eventually, we knew it. It was just a race to see who nailed it first. But these contests now appear to go down on an entirely different planet from the real world, way more than an arm’s reach from the wildest dreams of ninety nine per cent of us. So perhaps it’s vaguely possible contests were sicker way back when snowboarders were rockstars getting the FIS in a twist for failing drug tests and the wild after parties and the trashed hotel rooms. These athletic types with their yoga and their private half pipes and foam pits might be stomping triples under some particularly fancy lights whilst deafened by awfully grimy drums and basses, but how many pulses does that raise?

If you missed lessons 1 and 2, check them here

Go to http://www.worldsnowboardtour.com for more, and up to date stuff too!

Check this. Another rad look at the winners from the recent Arctic Challenge and how the overall World Snowboard Tour was decided. Contains more AYUMU, and therefore viewing is mandatory…

Peetu was recently crowned the overall winner of the World Snowboard Tour for a record fourth time. Check this compilation of some of his riding highlights, along with chat from the man himself…

For the 4th time, Peetu Piiroinen showed he is the most consistent overall rider on the tour. At last weekend’s Arctic Challenge, the Finn was crowned Overall World Snowboard Tour Champion 2012/13!

The second installment of the World Snowboard Tour’s epic lookback at the history of competitive snowboarding continues… This time we get to see Terje in his pipe pomp and the emergence of a contest that was to take the snowboard world by storm – the Air&Style.

Teaming up with Swatch, we opened our archives, dusted off our historical material and searched for some missing chapters. We asked for help from many partners worldwide for footage to fill any missing gaps, and with that we have produced something truly incredible  Our passion for the sport, combined with hard labour and hours spent in the editing room have resulted in a five webisodes series, of which we proudly present number one today. 

TAC 2013 – 1st – Iouri Podladtchikov

TAC 2013 – 2nd – Yiwei Zhang

TAC 2013 – 3rd – Ayumu Hirano

Overall World Snowboard Tour 12-13 Winner – Peetu Piiroinen

Here’s the World Snowboard Tour’s wrapup of proceedings at TAC, and at the Nescafe Champs that went down in Leysin at the same time.

At the final men’s Halfpipe event of the season, The Arctic Challenge, Peetu Piiroinen was crowned World Snowboard Tour Overall Champion in Oslo Vinterpark today. “It feels so incredible of course that I was still able to win the Overall title after Ståle got it last year. It’s just so hard nowadays, because the riding level in both Slope and Pipe is getting higher and higher. It’s a lot of work, if you want to be good in both disciplines. Ståle and I had a really good battle, unfortunately he didn’t make it to the final here at the Arctic Challenge, it would have been nice to battle it out till the end.” Peetu commented on his 4th World Snowboard Tour title.

After a steady season with 7 top 10 results and 2 podium places, Peetu beat his rival Ståle Sandbech, who had trouble with his flow in the first heat of the semi-finals. He couldn’t land as clean as we usually see him do in Pipe. Peetu came in 5th overall; he was surpassed by Iouri Podladtchikov (SUI), Chinese surprise Yiwei Zhang (CHN) and World Snowboard Tour Halfpipe Champion Ayumu Hirano (JPN).
 
As one of the favourites for the Arctic Challenge title, Iouri took the win with his second final run, laying down a Frontside 900 Tail Grab, Backside 900 Mute Grab – Frontside 1080 Tail Grab to Cab 1080 Double Cork Mute Grab and finally a Frontside 1080 Double Cork Truckdriver, scoring 90.28 points. With the last run in reversed order, first placed Iouri had to lay down his last run first, only scoring a 58.85. He followed the competition trying to beat his score from the hot seat.
Iouri commented: “The Arctic Challenge is a contest that I used to wait for, because it’s always been in the end of the season and it’s always been on a high level; of technical difficulty and also a high level on style. I am very proud that we still represent that today; really represent snowboarding the way that it should be – for example those big Backside Airs and some really really good grabs that you don’t see often, that’s important to me. And to be the winner right now is just insane! I’m excited to ride more contests with Ayumu in it; he’ll obviously be there in the future. There are not too many riders that have a little bit of skate style. I’m a skater and he’s a skater. I really like to watch people that have a little bit of skate style in their riding. So excited about that, and I hope that he’ll develop his tricks even more.”

Second sensation of the evening was Chinese Yiwei Zhang from Harbin, China. With the next World Championships of Snowboarding moving from Oslo to Yabuli in 2016, Yiwei received a wildcard to ride the Arctic Challenge and fully exploited the opportunity to show his amazing ability here. With a very impressive final run consisting of a huge Backside Air to Frontside 1080 Double Cork Frontside Grab – Cab 1080 Double Cork Stalefish -Double Crippler Frontside Grab, he captivated the Vinterpark crowd.
 
Landing his final 6Star event on the podium, Ayumu Hirano casually picked up the trophy for his already awarded World Snowboard Tour Halfpipe title, happy as ever.
 
The World Snowboard Tour 12-13 came to an end here today, but at the same time the 5Star Nescafe Champs marked the first Slopestyle event of the new 201314 season. Nescafé Champs 2013 podium:

Men                           
1. Janne Korpi
2. Spencer Link
3. Scott Moline

Women
1. Ty Walker
2. Jordie Karlinski
3. Phoebe Novelle

Riders have the chance to stock up on World Snowboard Tour points in different disciplines early this season, giving them a head start before a packed winter schedule with the Olympics in Sochi, Russia is on the horizon.
 
With the 5Star Spring Battle in Flachauwinkl, Austria on next weekend, and the first 6Star event X Games Tignes from 20th till 22nd of March, the best action in snowboarding is guaranteed for spring.

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…

The dudes at the World Snowboard Tour have partnered up with Swatch to produce this 7-part documentary series focussed on the history of competitive snowboarding. Pretty interesting stuff, check it…

Shred documentaries filled with archive footage seem all the rage these days – this series follows hot on the heels of burn’s nostalgia-heavy We Ride – The Story of Snowboarding – and this is no bad thing. It’s always rad to dip into snowboarding’s history to see how far we’ve come and also throw some high fives to the guys and girls responsible for pushing the boundaries. With this season’s World Snowboard Tour almost a wrap, the crew have launched this 7-part series charting the evolution of contest riding from the titular straight line runs to today’s mind melting barrage of hyper spinning.

This first episode looks at the inception of the first shred contests over in the US back in the 80s, spotlights the likes of Jake Burton, Tom Sims, Craig Kelly and Terry Kidwell, and is, to coin a phrase from a magazine of the time, absolutely radical.