Monday Mix - July 12, 2021

Welcome to this week's edition of the Monday Mix.

Things are a little somber around here this week, as we mourn the passing of former FIS President Gian Franco Kasper. Mr. Kasper served FIS for 46 years - first as Secretary General, then for the last 23 years as President, right up until just over a month ago when he was succeeded by new FIS President Johan Eliasch. You can read more about Gian Franco Kasper's life and career here.

So, with that in mind, we'll get down to Mix business with some pure snowboarding to kick things off, beginning with a perfect method from Brock Crouch in Mt. Hood...

As we're sure you're aware, Mt. Hood is the epicentre of shred in North America right now, with a huge collection of incredible riders on hand looking to squeeze the last few drops out of the 2020/21 season and maybe even stock up on some new tricks to bring forward into 2021/22.

Here's Joey Okesson putting down a backside double 12 with an axis that you don't see successfully attempted very often...

And here's Queralt Castellet locking down one of the most stylish tricks in halfpipe riding with an alley-oop backside rodeo...

Judd Henkes is on the scene, doing Judd things, like the perfect switch front board bs 450 melon out in the middle of this line...

Whereas the likes Sage Kotsenburg, Torgeir Bergrem, Zak Hale, Ryo Aizawa and Brandon Davis got together to wreak a little havoc on the pipe in this edit. Come for the starpower. Any time you get to see a double grab stiffy in the halfpipe you know you're in for a good time...

Speaking of Ryo, here he is making some sweet, sweet music on a chunky ol' down-flat-down...

Checking in across the Atlantic now in Austria, where Anna Gasser seems to have established a solid work-life balance, casually crushing it out on the lake wakesurfing one day...

And then pushing the envelope in her office up on the glacier at Moelltaler the next...

As you might expect, Clemens Millauer is on the scene there with Anna in Moelltaler, going crazy on the same rail line...

While Mikko Rehnberg is keeping things cruise-y in Zermatt...

Meanwhile in the great Down Under, recent Red Bull addition and world record halfpipe air holder Valentino Guseli checked in with a slick little early-season edit from Perisher...

And if we're talking about Australians with brand-new sponsors, we'd better mention that Tess Coady saw her incredible 2020/21 season turn into a deal with Monster this week. She celebrated her exciting news by destroying a couple of rails in this banger clip...

While we're down in Australia, let's check in on Belle Brockhoff and the SBX squad, who look like they're having a real swell time training and having fun in Jindabyne and Perisher...

July 8 marked one year to the day that beloved Australian SBX star Alex "Chumpy" Pullin passed away in a spearfishing accident, and Belle - along with her teammates and a huge turnout of Australian snowboarders and skiers -  marked the date with the first inaugural #ShredForChumpy day. Watch the full clip below as a great man and snowboarder was remembered in the best way we could imagine...

On to some lighter news, but keeping the Aussie connection, it came to our attention this week that both Scotty James AND Max Parrot were born on the same day - July 8, 1994. Which is to say that 27 years ago the world was blessed with what is just an inconceivable amount of snowboarding talent in the span of just a few hours...

Just for fun and because we've just seen it, here's Max dropping a lovely backside double rodeo 10 on the airbag...

There's not much on-snow action going on in the world of alpine snowboarding right now, but there is this clip of Sangkyum Kim and his incredible quads lifting a whooole lot of weight...

Meanwhile, Zan Kosir is satisfying his thirst for speed on two wheels and dirt...

While Alexander Payer and Sabine Schoeffmann were chasing down some more slowspeed highs hiking in the Dolomites...

Let's switch gears for a minute here and check in at the Monday Mix News Desk, where we'd like to congratulate Chloe Kim for winning the Best Athlete, Women's Action Sports at Saturday's Espy Awards. It's Ms. Kim's third time earning the honour...

And shout out to Kim's long-time US halfpipe teammate Arielle Gold, who announced her retirement from competitive snowboarding last week. The Stoneham 2013 halfpipe World Champion, PyeongChang 2018 halfpipe bronze medallist, and the owner of five X Games medals, Arielle is stepping away from snowboarding to persue a degree in veterinary medicine. Read more here.

Not sure if this fits as "news" or just as "incredibly awesome," but SBX ripper, guitar shredder, and all-around cool dude Hagen Kearney got a shout out from rock 'n' roll legends Motorhead last week...

We're going to wrap things up this week with some of the best vibes we came across on the 'gram this, looking to the sweet joy of childhood shredding.

Firstly we've got Annika Morgan as a young grom, lovin' a pow day in Stubai many moons ago...

And now we look to the youth of today, where seven year-old Vasilisa Ermakova just dropped a frontside rodeo 900 (!!) on an airbag set-up just outside of Moscow...

Hope you all enjoyed reading and manage to find a bit of joy of your own this week, on or off the board!

Peace and love.