Slopestyle World Cup season preview - 2024/25

Aug 28, 2024·Snowboard Park & Pipe

Taiga Hasegawa (JPN) warming the 2024/25 season up in Cardrona (NZL) © Buchholz/@fissnowboard

The start of the 2024/25 FIS Snowboard Park & Pipe slopestyle World Cup season is fast approaching, as we return to New Zealand’s Cardrona Alpine Resort for competition from 30 August to 01 September, which kicks off a campaign that will feature five slopestyle World Cup events over the following months before we cap things off at the St Moritz-Engadine 2025 FIS Freestyle, Snowboard and Freeski World Championships in Switzerland at the end of March.

Each and every one of this season’s slopestyle World Cups is a special one for its own reasons, and with the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games qualification cycle officially in full swing, you can expect the intensity to be ratcheted up for each and every drop-in from now until February 2026.

Read on for a little sneak peak of what, and who, to look out for in the upcoming FIS Snowboard slopestyle World Cup season…

THE CALENDAR

Our early start to the 2024/25 season brings World Cup action back to Cardrona for the first time in five years, to a venue that has a hosting history dating all the way back to 2007. One of the premier freestyle resorts in the southern hemisphere, Cardrona has long been a rider-favourite destination, and we’re more than hyped to launch winter here again this August.

After Cardrona, the slopestyle season takes a break of nearly four and a half months while we wait for the snow to fly up north, where we’ll then turn our attention to the big air World Cup calendar, which will be fully wrapped up by the second week of January.

When we do return to slopestyle action it’ll be for a big one, as from 15-18 January the Laax Open will once again serve as perhaps the “don’t-miss” event of the worldwide competition calendar. The Laax Open slopestyle and halfpipe World Cup week serves as a mecca for the snowboard world of Europe and beyond, and with this season seeing the 10th anniversary of the world-renowned competition, expect it to be the best one yet.

Following Laax we head to the USA for the biggest non-World Championships competition week of the year, as Buttermilk Resort in Aspen is stepping up to host slope, big air and halfpipe competitions over the course of a heavy seven days from 30 January to 06 February. It’s been a minute since we’ve seen one resort host the full slate of Park & Pipe events (for snowboard and freeski, nonetheless), and we can’t wait to see it all go down at one of the premier shred destinations in North America.

From Aspen we move north to Calgary, Canada, where slope and pipe are set to hit the Great White North’s premier training ground at Canada Olympic Park for the Snow Rodeo from 19-23 February. Site of the very first FIS Snowboard World Cup slopestyle competition back in 2010 (won by Canada’s own Mark McMorris, of course), look for Calgary to celebrate 15 years since that history-making hosting turn with a special one this season.

Finally, if all goes according to plan, it’s yet another highly-anticipated event to cap off the slopestyle World Cup season, as we set our sights on Livigno, Italy, for what will be the test event competition for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games halfpipe event next winter.

While there’s still some work to be done on the venue there in Livingo - thus the “TBD” aka “to-be-determined” marker beside the event on our calendar - we’re more than hopeful that all the pieces will be in place come 12-14 March that we’ll be able to set the best in the world loose on the slope course that will serve as the venue for the biggest show on earth in February 2026.

RIDERS TO WATCH - WOMEN

The only acceptable place to start here is with the snowboarder who is arguably the most progressive in the world right now - Japan’s Kokomo Murase.

Last season’s slopestyle and Park & Pipe overall crystal globe winner, Murase routinely made the extraordinary look easy throughout 2023/24, stomping NBDs left, right and centre, hitting the podium in four out of five starts and earning three victories. Murase’s style is impeccable, her bag of tricks deep, and her consistency unmatched. Expect more history - and more victories - from the 19-year-old this season.

Per usual, it’s not just one standout to keep an eye on from the Japanese team this season, as Reira Iwabuchi, Miyabi Onitsuka, Mari Fukada and Kokomo’s younger sister Yura Murase all promise to figure heavily in the slopestyle (and big air) picture. Fukada in particular has been on a heater in preseason, and we expect the 17-year-old to assert herself as the next great Japanese talent in 2024/25.

Then there’s reigning slopestyle World Champion and 2024 X Games winner Mia Brookes (GBR) - possibly the best rail rider in women’s snowboarding right now, and no slouch on the jumps, either. Brookes famously become the first woman to land a 1440 in slopestyle competition at the Bakuriani 2023 World Champs, and now that her cork game is getting dialled in, the 17-year-old will be even more formidable this season.

Don’t forget about the wily veterans. When the likes of Anna Gasser (AUT), Julia Marino (USA), Laurie Blouin (CAN) and/or Hailey Langland (USA) are in the mix, each and every one of them is more than capable of grabbing a top-3 spot on any given day. And, should two-time Olympic gold medallist Jamie Anderson (USA) decide to return to competition at any point this season, things could get even more crowded in the top tier of the women’s elite.

Speaking of Olympic gold medallists, reigning champion Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (NZL) will be returning to competition on home soil in Cardrona this week after missing most of last winter due to an ankle injury. A true all-terrain weapon, Sadowski-Synnott is nearly unbeatable anywhere on the mountain when she is on her game. The 23-year-old hasn’t missed the podium in a World Cup start since the 2019/20 season, and while her full post-injury fitness remains to be seen, we’ve got a feeling that her streak of top-3s will not be soon broken.

Annika Morgan (GER), Jasmine Baird (CAN), Melissa Peperkamp (NED), Kamilla Kozuback (HUN) and Vanessa Volopichova (CZE) are a few of the other names we’ll be keeping an eye on throughout the early-going of the season on the women’s slope side of things.

RIDERS TO WATCH - MEN

We seem to say it every season, but every season the statement seems to get more true - it is wide open at the top of the men’s slopestyle mountain, and the fight to stand on the apex of that mountain gets tougher every day.

Last season it was Canada’s Liam Brearley earning his spot amongst the very best of the best, winning the Laax Open and the Silvaplana slopestyle season finale on his way to claiming Canada’s first slopestyle crystal globe, while also winning knucklehuck gold at the X Games and the Dew Tour streetstyle event.

While no one will soon be stealing the Canadian king’s throne from Mark McMorris (a second place at the 2024 X Games proved the 30-year-old still has plenty left in the tank), 21-year-old Brearley showed that Canada’s succession plan is looking very solid indeed. While Brearley has been temporarily sidelined by a preseason injury, expect him to be back and firing in the new year.

Brearley’s win in Silvaplana gave him a last-gasp boost to best Japan’s Ryoma Kimata, one of the four different Japanese men who claimed a World Cup victory in slopestyle or big air competition last season along with Hiroaki Kunitake, Taiga Hasegawa and Hiroto Ogiwara - with Ogiwara’s win coming as part of a Japanese sweep of the Big Air Chur podium.

The riches in talent at the disposal of the Japanese team is, quite simply, second to none, and while Kimata may have asserted himself as a standout with his unique style and success last season, any of Japan’s top six riders has the chops to finish the season with the crystal globe in hand come March.

Speaking of crystal globes, last season the world’s most dangerous triple-weapon Valentino Guseli (AUS) claimed his second straight Park & Pipe overall crystal globe, earning podiums in halfpipe and slopestyle when he wasn’t busy setting world records for the highest snowboarding air ever recorded. While Val is setting out the first event of the season in Cardrona, expect him to be busiest man in snowboarding when he does return to the fold later on this season.

While the unfortunate news that Luke Winkelmann will likely be out for the season after sustaining an ACL tear in preseason training puts a bit of a damper on things for the U.S. team, the return of Dusty Henricksen to the fold will serve to offset that disappointment somewhat.

The 2022/23 slopestyle crystal globe winner, Henricksen missed all of the 2023/24 competition season as he dealt with a back injury. Now slated for return at the first stop of the winter in Cardrona, Henricksen will be bringing back to the table his inimitable blend of style and originality. There’s really no one in the world who can make the gnarliest tricks look as good as Dusty does, and snowboarding is more than happy to have him back in the mix.

With Henricksen and 2024 X Games winner and 2018 Olympic gold medallist Red Gerard, the U.S. has two of the absolute best in the world in their stables, and with veterans Chris Corning, Sean Fitzsimons and Judd Henkes, and reigning Junior World Champion Brooklyn Depriest, the U.S. team is looking as rock-solid as ever.

The whole snowboarding world is looking forward to the return of Marcus Kleveland, who missed most of last season’s competitions after a crash in Laax last January. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again - Kleveland might be the most naturally talented rider to ever strap on a board, and any time he’s on the scene it’s a much-watch event.

With Mons Roisland, Oyvind Kirkhus and dual freeski-snowboard superhuman Birk Ruud repping the west Scandinavia as well, the Norwegians are coming into the season as one of the most intriguing and exciting national teams in the world.

Finally, don’t forget about Beijing 2022 slopestyle silver medallist and big air gold medallist Su Yiming. The 20-year-old is on the scene in Cardrona to start the season, and this might be a sign that he’s looking to put together a complete competition season for the first time in his young career. One of the most electric riders to ever put on a bib, Su simply makes competitions better every time he drops in.

Dark horse candidates to make some noise this slopestyle season include Cameron Spalding (CAN), Romain Allemand (FRA), Chaeung Lee (KOR) and Ian Matteoli (ITA).

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