PARK & PIPE TOP 10 OF 2023

With the calendar flipping over to 2024 at midnight on Sunday, we’re taking the opportunity to look back at 10 of the standout FIS Snowboard Park & Pipe World Cup and World Championships performances from 2023.

While by no means a definitive list, these are 10 of the top moments that came to mind when looking back on a year that saw a whole lot of special stuff when it came to the ever-explosive world of big air, halfpipe and slopestyle snowboarding, and looking back at these has us hyped for what’s to come in 2024.

We’re counting these down in order as they happened over the course of the year, beginning in January in Kreischberg and wrapping up with the outrageously good Copper Mountain big air and halfpipe World Cups that went down just a couple of weeks ago.

Enjoy the list, and have a happy, fun and safe New Year!

FIS SNOWBOARD PARK & PIPE BEST OF 2023

10) JAN 14, Kreischberg (AUT) - Taiga Hasegawa leads the first ever Japanese sweep of a Park & Pipe podium, with and Ryoma Kimata finishing in second place and Kira Kimura rounding out the podium in third in his first World Cup start.

9) FEB 4, Mammoth Mountain (USA) - Valentino Guseli (AUS) lands on the World Cup podium twice in the same day, earning second-place finishes in both the halfpipe and the weather-shortened slopestyle competitions at Mammoth Mountain. With those podiums, Guseli became the first rider in World Cup history to hit the big air, halfpipe and slopestyle podiums in the same season.

8) FEB 10, Calgary (CAN) - Mitsuki Ono and Ruka Hirano each claim their third-straight halfpipe World Cup victories on their way to claiming the 2022/23 halfpipe crystal globes, becoming the 10th and 11th riders in World Cup history to accomplish that feat - with Ono’s being the first female three-peat in 22 years.

7) FEB 27, Bakuriani (GEO) - Just-turned-16-years-old Mia Brookes (GBR) stomps the first-ever flat 1440 in women’s competition to win slopestyle World Champs gold, becoming the youngest SB World Champion of all time in the process.

6) FEB 27, Bakuriani (GEO) - Marcus Kleveland (NOR) becomes the first rider in FIS Snowboard history to successfully defend a slopestyle World Championships gold medal, dropping in as the last rider of the competition and laying it all on the line for the W.

5) MAR 3, Bakuriani (GEO) - 16-year-old Chaeun Lee (KOR) becomes the youngest men’s FIS Snowboard World Champion of all time - and the first Korean to ever hit the World Champs podium in any manner - with an absolute heater of a final run in Bakuriani.

4) MAR 26, Silvaplana (SUI) - Julia Marino (USA) becomes just the second rider in World Cup history to win three-straight slopestyle World Cup competitions, on her way to claiming the first slopestyle crystal globe for a US woman in six years.

3) Dec 2, Beijing (CHN) - Su Yiming (CHN) returns to the World Cup after almost two years without putting on the FIS Snowboard bib and immediateoy reasserts himself as one of the world's most exciting and explosive riders, stepping up at the site of his Beijing 2022 gold medal triumph to claim victory in an emphatic comeback effort.

2) Dec 15, Copper Mountain (USA) - Kokomo Murase (JPN) goes absolutely ballistic at the 2023/24 big air World Cup season finale, dropping cab triple cork 1260, backside triple cork 1440 (first-ever), and cab triple cork 1440 (also a NBD) on her way to earning the highest score in the history of the big air World Cup - 197.00 out of a possible 200. At the risk of actually underselling what Murase brought to the table, what we saw in Copper was one of most ground-breaking performances in snowboard big air history.

1) Dec 16, Copper Mountain (USA) - The Gaon Choi era of halfpipe snowboarding begins on a high, as the 15-year-old Korean makes her World Cup debut with an impressive and emphatic victory at Copper Mountain. This was the first, but how many are to come for the next great one?

GOD-TIER: JAN 21, Laax (SUI) - When halfpipe competition at the Laax Open was cancelled due to heavy fog making it impossible for judges to see the pipe, the organisers in Laax presented an opportunity for the riders, and it turned out to be one of the most thrilling displays in all of snowboarding in 2023 - a 30 minute jam session to give the thousands of fans lining the Laax pipe something to cheer for in the wake of the abandoned finals.

What happened from there will be part of snowboard lore for decades, as the majority of the finalists stuck around to attack the Laax pipe with abandon, lead by Kaishu Hirano (JPN) and Valentino Guseli going back-to-back on two of the most monsterous halfpipe airs ever recorded.