Monday Mix - June 1, 2020

Time keeps sliding along and somehow it's already June - two and a half months since the 2019/20 World Cup season came to an early and unforeseen end and enough time for what seems to be the worst of the pandemic to have come and gone.

But even with the official start of summer just three weeks away it was another busy week in shredland, with various World Cup awards finally reaching their destinations after getting held up in transport confusion, spring riding going down on glaciers and dirty snow patches all over the northern hemisphere, and some lucky resorts down south gearing up to open their slopes for the season in the coming weeks.

All of which means, of course, that the Monday Mix charges on, beginning this week with a shoutout to team Italia. Lead by the likes of SBX crystal globe winner Michela Moioli and PSL and parallel overall globe winner Roland Fischnaller, the Italians were rewarded for their performance across all World Cup events this past season with the FIS Snowboard overall Nations Cup, which finally reached the hands of FISI president Flavio Roda last week.

It's the first time Italy has taken top spot amongst all nations, and hopefully a bright spot for a country that has been through some exceptionally tough times in the past few months.

Meanwhile, Tiarn Collins' slopestyle second-overall silver medal finally made its way all the way down to New Zealand, capping off an impressive comeback season for the 20-year-old for some good-lookin' hardware...

But back to the Italians for a second here, as the Framarin boys Leo and Loris found themselves a patch of snow in La Thuile, scraped together a little kicker, and went mental on it over the weekend. This is just pure, unadulterated, old school fun.

You love to see it...

What's that you say? You like this thing called "fun"? Us too! And so, apparently, does Clemens Millauer, Anna Gassar, and their #shreddergang, who've just been going off on this perfect jump in Kaunertaler for the last couple of weeks...

The showtime booter isn't the only spot on Kaunertaler that's getting sessioned, however. In fact, judging by this shot of Alexander Payer, it's looking like there'll be some quality shredding all over the Austrian resort for WEEKS to come...

More brotherly love content here, as the McCormick lads Matt and Chris of GBR just dropped a sweet edit from their early-season sessions at Stubai's Prime Park last year...

You know Pat Burgener is always down for a little of that "fun" stuff, especially if it means dropping a floatie nollie front flip off the cannon in Crans Montana...

Meanwhile, over in Val Thorens, Liam Tourki and crew got together for the sort of spring session that dreams are made of. A sketchy multi-angled hip jump, a perfect sunset, a BBQ, and a good group of friends? Yes please...

Aussie Matty Cox literally only has two gears - Sleep, and Fun - and we don't think he was sleeping, even though he laid it down for a second on this back-bouncing knucklehuck variation...

Staying with the Aussies but switching it up to some off-snow content here, let's check in on the man the myth the legend Scotty "Tiger Woods" James to see how he's been passing the time lately...

Slick.

And now for a quick update from the FIS Snowboard Fashion Desk: Lucas Equibar has gone blonde!

Lucas wasn't the only SBX star out on the water last week, as GBR's Charlotte Bankes managed to snap this selfie while laying into a nice heelside carve on her sailboat.

(Is this still called "carving" or do sailors have another word for it? And if it's a snowboarder doing the sailing do they use the sailing term or the shredding turn?? We're sticking with what we know here...it's a carve.)

While we're here talking about SBX, a huge round of applause to Canada's Chris Robanske, who last week officially announced his retirement after 10 years on the national team. While injuries kept him out of the start gate for the past couple of season, Robanske managed to earn two victories and seven podiums in his World Cup career, along with bronze in SBX team competition with his teammate Kevin Hill at the Sierra Nevada 2017 world championships. Good luck with your future endeavors, Chris!

Just a reminder that our latest #ClassicsLive competition is streaming for a couple more days over on YouTube, where we're looking back to the first career World Cup victory for the inimitable Ester Ledecka. Watch the Czech superwoman win on a soggy day in Rogla here...

Now, before we finish off the Mix this week, some unfortunate news to report from Burton, as they've already announced the cancellation of the 2021 US Open. There's a lot of uncertainty in the world right now and by the sounds of it there were too many variables at play to proceed with planning the event in Vail. While we know the Open is irreplaceable, on our side we're still very much hopeful we'll be able to bring you top-level competition through a successful World Cup in 2020/21, and we know that the Open will be back bigger and better than ever in 2022.

We'll wrap things up for this week with some awesome news from our friends at Cardrona, who are slated to open for business on June 26. While we're obviously extremely bummed we won't be headed down to New Zealand's finest resort to open the 2020/21 season this year due to obvious reasons, we're stoked that they've got things under control pandemic-wise and can get the lifts spinning on schedule...

We'll throw things back to Matty Cox for a visual representation of the stoke regarding this development, as he sums up the vibes every rider within striking distance of a mountain set to open in the south is feeling right now...

Awww yeah!

Keep it cool out there, everyone, and we'll see you here next week.