Halldor Helgason

Halldor Helgason is among a rare breed of professional snowboarders. In an industry that has become reliant on manufacturing a rider’s image and marketability, Halldor has not wavered in what he believes in: having as much fun as possible on and off his snowboard. What this has lead to is, alongside his brother Eiki Helgason, an insatiable sense of entrepreneurship with starting the brands Lobster Snowboards, Switchback Bindings, Hoppipolla Headwear and 7/9/13, as well as a refreshing perspective and attitude towards where our priorities should lie. It’s a perspective that was sorely missed at this year’s X Games, regardless of your own opinions towards the biggest contest in our lifestyle. Whitelines Mag, a publication based in the UK, did an opinion piece on why he is a great role model because he stands up for himself, his beliefs, and he isn’t afraid to put his often controversial, but always entertaining, persona on display. We completely agree. Thus, we decided he was the perfect person to ask about triple corks, skiing, style, and whatever else lives in the beautiful mind of Halldor Helgason.

Halldor Helgason

Halldor Helgason, Rekyavik, Iceland. Photo: Cyril Müller

So how have you been man?
I’ve been all good my man, trying to film a lot this year, some preseason comps and small injuries. Nothing major but stuff that takes 1-2 weeks to get rid off. What about you mister, how have you been?

I’ve been really well, good things happening here. But let’s get right into it. Before X Games I didn’t see your name on the rider list and when I heard you didn’t get an invite I was pretty surprised. What are your thoughts about that?
To be honest I wasn’t too surprised. I somehow won X Games Big Air in 2010, which was super unexpected of course since it was pretty much my first big event ever. Since then I haven’t even made it to finals, so I’m actually surprised that they kept inviting me for so many years. But I’m happy when they do invite me cause I’m stoked on going to X Games to try keep up with the contest guys and try to come up with new stuff.

Triples were going down like crazy in big air. What do you think of the triple cork phenomenon? Did you like throwing them? Do you think the other riders do?
It’s the progression of contest riding, you can’t hate on the progression of snowboarding since that only means you’re getting old and can’t keep up with what is going on anymore. I watched the X Games this year and I was so pumped on seeing that almost everyone was doing something unique; changing grabs and putting their own style on the tricks. So I was really pumped to see that, and the judging is going in that direction that you can’t only do mute grabs on every single trick and get away with it… Except McLovin — sorry Mark you are still the man! But it seems they are now trying to reward people that are doing different tricks, different grabs, nice style and riding the course in a way that no one else does it, which I think is a step in the right direction for contests. And to be honest I think it’s only going to go more and more in that direction which is awesome.

I’ve tried 3 or 4 triple penetrations myself, never landed one perfect, of course (on a snowboard). But landings are overrated anyway. I kind of feel I’m not strong enough or fast enough to do them, and my brain can’t really handle that much rotation anymore. But I will for sure send one again when the time is right and after being in the gym getting pumped up for the G-force.

For sure the riders like to do triples when the conditions are good and the jump is perfect, it can’t be a bad feeling landing an insane triple like they are doing. They are actually making them look better and better now as well. I just hope that someone isn’t going to try and be the first one to land a quad anytime soon. Then I will have no problem saying that I’m too old for the progression because it’s way off and the next step will be that people will start wearing speed suits to get the flips around like ariel skiing…

I was actually pretty disappointed since it is one of the only classic true snowboard contest that’s left. Now it’s a skiing contest as well, thanks to Shaun.

To you, is there a good looking triple cork?
Yeah, you cannot say Ståle’s BS triple 1440 doesn’t look good. There’s a lot of spin but he is putting his own personal style to them. I just don’t like watching only triples with mute grabs go down when I watch contests. I like to have a little bit of everything: style, creativity, unique and technical — that’s what the contests are missing most of the time. It seems like they only focus on the technical part and that’s it.