Seb Toutant flying high. Photo: Dominic Berchtold/Red Bull Content Pool
Competitive snowboarding returns with a bang this week to Laax, Switzerland. Laax is home to the most progressive terrain and halfpipe in Europe, earning itself the title of “World’s Best Freestyle Resort” at the World Ski Awards four years in a row, so it’s no surprise that it’s also home to one of the most progressive snowboarding events in the world, the LAAX Open. The competition will consist of both men and women’s slopestyle and halfpipe events. This Friday and Saturday, the January 22 and 23, you’ll be able to tune in on Red Bull TV to watch the guys and gals from all over the world lay it down and push the sport of snowboarding into the stratosphere. The list of competitors is strong on both the men’s and women’s side with many past LAAX Open winners returning for more. However, the legendary Shaun White will not be returning to Switzerland this year, instead choosing to focus on the upcoming Aspen X Games. “Decided not to compete at Laax because all the variables traveling during Covid,” Shaun said on Instagram. “I decided to stay in the U.S. and focus my efforts on X Games!”
The men’s slopestyle competition includes the “Canadian AirForce” team of Seb Toutant, Max Parrot and Mark McMorris, Norway’s Ståle Sandbech, and U.S. athlete Chris Corning, all previous LAAX Open champs. Along with these veterans, new bucks such as Judd Henkes and Dusty Henricksen will be arriving on the scene as well. On the women’s side, previous winners such as Jamie Anderson, Enni Rukajärvi and last year’s winner, Julia Marino will be joined by Austrian Anna Gasser, easily the most progressive female snowboarder on the planet, who has won basically every major title in the world, except for the LAAX Open.
In halfpipe, rumors are flying about Chloe Kim’s possible return to competition, where she would join Haruna Matsomuto and Xuetong Cai as well as Maddie Mastro and last year’s winner Queralt Castellet who dominated competition for the year, winning both the LAAX Open and the X Games. On the men’s side, hometown heroes Jan Scherrer, Pat Burgener and David Hablützel will have their work cut out for them to keep the Laax laurels in Switzerland, needing to beat Aussie Scotty James and Japan’s Yuto Totsuka.
You’ll be able to tune into the action here on Friday at 8:30 a.m. PST for slopestyle, and on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. PST for halfpipe.
Action sports competitions have been running into COVID-19 related hitches all over the globe, including the recent cancellation of upcoming WSL Championship Tour events in Hawaii, so it’s great to see something coming together for this weekend. Hopefully all goes smoothly, and this event helps pave the way for the 2021 Winter X Games in Aspen coming up the January 29 and 30 of this month.
