The year-long wait since the announcement of The Snow League series is over! Japan sweeps the first ever stop of Shaun White’s Snow League and it is officially off to the races to see who will be crowned the overall champs for the inaugural season. Sena Tomita and Yuto Totsuka each rode away with $50,000 and bragging rights to add to their resumes. On the men’s side, Japan swept the entire podium with top-seeded Ayumu Hirano battling it out for third while Ruka Hirano laid it on the line for second. American Maddie Mastro took second on the women’s side after posting the highest score in the earlier group round but just couldn’t top Sena in the final head-to-head battle. 16-year-old Gaon Choi took care of her third-place matchup to stay on the podium for the historic event. This might also be the first contest to ever have riders needing a triple cork to end up on the podium on the men’s side. And if that is the case, this might already be the most “progressive” contest in halfpipe snowboarding to date.
An exciting product to kick off in Aspen, mostly sunny weather throughout the two-day contest was met with a solid stream on Peacock for both Friday and Saturday. Tapping talent from The Bomb Hole and our own Snowboard Mag, Chris Grenier and T. Bird brought some familiar faces to the broadcast alongside NBC’s winter elite. The broadcast was a familiar site to any casual sports fan with easy-to-digest metrics like the height meter and live calling of the runs which is great for trying to expand the audience of snowboarding.
As far as the new format and strategy White’s contest brings to halfpipe competition, it felt like a regular contest for the most part in the early rounds but the head-to-head (also seen in the Natural Selection Tour and surfing’s championship tour) provided a good amount of drama to unfold in the later half. Our one critique is unlike the other fields that use head-to-head, the venue doesn’t change throughout the day like a wave or endless options on a backcountry line. While the event organizers have tried to switch it up by dictating the riders to drop in from both sides during their heats, it doesn’t do much besides offer a run that is a little less polished from the athlete. That being said, with this contest now being on the rider’s minds, we hope to see more and more creativity in the pipe.
On the other side of it, we thought missing Scotty James and Chloe Kim for the first event would cast a bit of a shadow on the tour’s overall merit but the opportunity for new names to emerge put that on the back burner. Alessandro Barbieri might be the future of American halfpipe riding, putting on an impressive performance that ended up with him just shy of the podium in fourth. Chase Blackwell, who has been around for a bit, also had a chance to shine in the quarterfinals and did not disappoint. On the women’s side, Mitsuki Ono solidified her campaign to be one of the top riders over the past few years with solid height throughout the contest and Sena Tomita won gold on probably the biggest stage of her career so far!
All in all, it is a great step forward for snowboard contests and we know anything that Shaun White attaches himself to brings in new viewers. Shaun alluded to the pull of the jersey once he saw the new ones dawning his logo made by Burton, which only left us wanting the new league owner to strap back in and see what he has left in the tank. While we don’t think he could top Yuto, Ruka, or Ayumu, you never know how far his competitive drive will take him. A few more chances to see him go head-to-head with today’s stars would be quite the captivating show. Sadly we will have to wait for next winter for the next stops to commence, but at least now we have a proven concept and highlight reel to enjoy until the next one.
