Now, before you place any bets off our picks, we hit about 50% of our X Games predictions. I will sell out T. Bird and say we went back and forth on predictions and he had the lion’s share of the list, but my final picks weren’t much better when it was all said and done. Hopefully, this one will be different. With no knuckle huck or slopestyle at Dew Tour (and let’s be real the judges don’t even know who actually wins knuckle huck), we have fewer chances to be wrong… but we only have four opportunities to be right. The riders will be listening to Stan Levielle and Todd Richards in the announcer’s booth so maybe they will get in their heads and all the results will be different. It all goes down starting with women’s streetstyle this weekend so if you want a taste of live snowboarding and to watch the last major pipe contest of the year… head down to Copper or over to Dew Tour’s site for all the events. Predictions below.
Women’s Snowboard Streetstyle Athletes –
Alexis Roland, Egan Wint, Grace Warner, Iris Pham, Kaleah Opal, Madison Blackley, Jaylen Hansen, Lauren Derminio, Mia Brookes, Veda Hallen, Sierra Forchheimer, Desiree Melancon, Ellie Weiler, and Tawnya Godinez.
Favorite: Egan Wint
From Instagram stories, it looks like a majority of the invited list is on their way to Copper. A lot of returning riders, including a majority of the podium last year with Alexis Roland and Egan Wint. Egan has been on a role this season, taking the Heavy Metal crown last month and we are crowning her the favorite going into streetstyle. Alexis could easily repeat but she has been battling back from an injury this year and has been quiet so far. Grace Warner is also on one this season, probably looking the smoothest overall and could easily walk away with it if she can land her runs. Mia Brookes will be pretty hungry since there is no slope or big air discipline for her to dominate, but we will roll the dice with the current reigning rail jam champ when it gets cold and under the lights in Colorado. Jaylen Hansen and Iris Pham are splitting the underdog title for the contest. Both are extremely stylish and if they can string together a few rounds and lands, they could easily slide into the top spot.
Men’s Snowboard Streetstyle Athletes –
Nate Haust, Benny Milam, Darcy Sharpe, Brandon Davis, Nik Baden, Luke Winkelmann, Sam Taxwood, Pat Fava, Sam Klein, Frank Jobin, Joey Fava, Zak Hale, Liam Brearley, Riley Nickerson
Favorite: Brandon Davis
This one is pretty tough to call without seeing the course. Pat Fava has been the undisputed rail jam assassin over the past two years and his brother Joey has been hot on his heels as of late. Luke Winkelmann is coming off the latest big rail jam “win” at Heavy Metal but it also coming in from lapping in Europe for the Absolut Park Spring Battle. He took a solid slam and he is probably healed up by now, but we have to write some type of reason down for our prediction. Benny Milam and Nate Haust were two and one last year respectively, but Brandon Davis injured himself right before the contest got started so we didn’t get to see how he held up against the field after having a solid practice session. Brandon hasn’t been in many contests recently, but he has been riding everything the past year so we are gonna give him the nod for this one. When the money is right, everyone is going to go for it. So an underdog could be any single rider that straps in (and we are sure some last minute entries will pop up before this thing kicks off), but we are going to go with Sam Klein. He almost made the final rounds last year, and he is normally a crowd favorite high fiving anyone within reach throughout the whole event.
Women’s Snowboard Superpipe
Mitsuki Ono, Maddie Mastro, Sonora Alba, Queralt Castellet, Jiayu Liu, Patti Zhou, Sena Tomita, Kinsley White, Zoe Kalapos, Summer Fenton
Favorite: Mitsuki Ono
Last year’s gold medalist Gaon Choi has been out this season, and American Beah Kim who has been finishing right off the podium pretty consistently is not listed as an invited athlete. Chloe is not on the start list as well, so it is a bit more up in the air than usual. It is Maddie Mastro’s contest to lose, but she sometimes has trouble putting it down when there is nobody standing in her way. Queralt Castellet walked away with a silver at the last Olympics and although we haven’t seen much from her since, this could be her year. Mitsuki Ono is currently leading the World Cup standings and could easily add another podium to her record this weekend, so she is probably our favorite to take the whole thing. Patti Zhou took second last year, and her interviews were almost as entertaining as the riding, so we will definitely put her in the underdog spot hoping she takes the whole thing so we can hear more about her buying tequila for her coach to celebrate.
Men’s Snowboard Superpipe
Danny Davis, Ayumu Hirano, Ruka Hirano, Chase Josey, Kaishu Hirano, Lucas Foster, Chase Blackwell, Raibu Katayama, Yuto Totsuka, Alessandro Barbieri
Favorite: Ayumu Hirano
We were wrong with our X Games prediction putting Ayumu at the top against Scotty James, but there is no Scotty and hopefully this time Ayumu will land! If the invited list above is incomplete and Scotty ends up showing up, we are still going with Ayumu. Ruka and Kaishu are also pretty solid underdog choices, meaning if they all podiumed, not only would we have a Japanese sweep, it would be a Hirano sweep. That would be a historic podium for sure, now if only all three of them were brothers! Kaishu, who currently holds the world record for going the biggest in a halfpipe is Ayumu’s younger brother, and according to the internet, Ruka has no relation. We thought Ruka was a cousin at some point but we must have been mistaken. Raibu and Yuto are also always a danger in the pipe, so keep an eye out for the five Japanese riders to potentially shake things up.