2025/26 FIS Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup season preview

Nov 24, 2025·Snowboard Park & Pipe

Photo: @jthrifty/Julia Thrift

December is just around the corner, and so is the first drop-in of the 2025/26 FIS Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup season in China’s Secret Garden on 10 December.

This year’s Halfpipe calendar is jam-packed with seven World Cup stops in four months, as well as the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games in February. With the first three World Cup events also serving as qualifying events for Milano Cortina 2026, the pressure, expectations, and level of competition should be at an all-time high right from the word ‘GO' in Secret Garden.

2025/26 HALFPIPE CALENDAR

The first of this season’s seven stops kicks off on 10 December in China’s Secret Garden at the same venue where the Halfpipe competitions of the Beijing 2022 Games were held. Back then, temperatures at Genting Snow Park fell to a bone-chilling minus 30 degrees Celsius for the explosive Halfpipe competitions, but temperatures are expected to be a little less frigid for this season’s opener. The Big Air World Cup season opener in Secret Garden in November is also sure to help heat things up before our Halfpipe heroes arrive on site, with the venue hosting top-level Big Air action two weeks before the pipe season gets underway.

After Secret Garden, riders head to Copper Mountain, USA for the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix beginning on 17 December. The Colorado stop is the first of two World Cup events held on U.S. snow this season. The U.S. Grand Prix has been a part of the Olympic qualification cycle since 1998 and helped launch the Olympic success stories of U.S. Halfpipe legends Shaun White and Chloe Kim.

New Year’s Eve will be something else in 2025 as Halfpipe’s best spend the last day of 2025 together in Calgary (CAN) for the third World Cup of the season beginning on 31 December. Any new year resolutions will then get a rest day before the finals on 2 January 2026.

From Calgary it’s just a short trip back to the USA to Aspen for the fourth World Cup of the season, and second to be hosted in the U.S. this season. Aspen Snowmass will be the second-to-last stop for Halfpipe Olympic hopefuls to earn qualification points for Milano Cortina 2026, so expect the intensity to ratchet up a few notches as riders lay it all on the line for the final pre-Olympic showdown.

After Aspen the tour heads to Laax (SUI) for the first of two European stops this season. The night-time finals of the prestigious Laax Open are scheduled for 18 January, a day before the Olympic Qualification Quota is published on 19 January 2026. It’s interesting to note that all but one of the top three Halfpipe finishers at the 2022 Laax Open went on to win medals at Beijing 2022.

Following the Laax Open it is just a few weeks until the Halfpipe competition at Milano Cortina 2026 begins on 11 February. After the Games, the World Cup tour resumes on 7 March in Ban-K (JPN). This is the first time that Japan has hosted a Halfpipe World Cup competition since 2016, with the Sapporo resort also previously hosting competition for the 2017 Asian Winter Games.

Silvaplana in Switzerland is the final stop of the 2025/26 FIS Halfpipe World Cup season and where the discipline’s Crystal Globe will be decided between 25 and 29 March. This is the first time the Corvatsch ski area will host a FIS Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup since the new pipe opened in March 2024, though the venue played host to an exceptional World Championships competition last season.

RIDERS TO WATCH: WOMEN

If the 2024/25 season is anything to go by, there is simply no stopping the USA’s Chloe Kim who became World Champion a third time at the 2025 FIS Snowboard World Championships in Engadin (SUI). Of the three World Cup events she contested last season, the 25-year-old won two, including the Laax Open, and narrowly missed out on a podium finish in Copper with fourth place. She also won her eighth X Games gold medal in 2025 on the 11th anniversary of her X Games debut, where she took silver at just 13 years of age. With back-to-back Olympic Halfpipe gold medals to her name already, Kim will be looking to become the first rider to three-peat this February in Italy.

Kim is not alone in representing the USA’s strengths in women’s Halfpipe, with Maddie Mastro fresh off of a career-best World Cup season yet in 2024/25. Mastro walked away with the Halfpipe Crystal Globe after collecting three podium finishes, including a maiden win in Secret Garden. The 25-year-old was also runner-up to Kim at the X Games Aspen 2025, adding to Mastro’s three silver and bronze between 2018 and 2023. Mastro also competed at the Beijing 2022 and PyeongChang 2018 Games, finishing 12th both times.

At 15 years of age, Japan’s Sara Shimizu claimed one win and one third place finish in her debut World Cup season in 2024/25. In between World Cup events she also secured bronze at the 2025 X Games behind U.S. riders Kim and Mastro. Shimizu continued her hot streak with silver at the Engadin 2025 World Championships. The teenager also won gold at the 2025 Asian Winter Games ahead of compatriot Sena Tomita, whose World Cup results last season ranged from victory in Stoneham (CAN) to 24th place at Secret Garden. Other Japanese names to watch are Rise Kudo and two-time Crystal Globe winner Mitsuki Ono, whose 2025 World Championships bronze followed her third place finish in Copper, one spot ahead of Chloe Kim. Kudo finished fourth behind Ono in Engadin.

Since making her World Cup debut in 2023, Gaon Choi (KOR) has claimed three podiums from four starts, including winning her very first World Cup in Copper. The 17-year-old also finished third at the 2025 Laax Open to share a podium with winner Kim and runner-up Mastro. Choi again shared a podium with Kim in Aspen, this time as runner-up. The youngest-ever X Games gold medalist after taking top spot in the 2023 edition as a 14-year-old, Choi has been hampered by injuries over the past couple of seasons, but has proven herself an exceptional talent every time she has dropped in when healthy.

RIDERS TO WATCH: MEN

The podium dominance gained by the jaw-dropping depth of talent on the Japanese halfpipe team is likely to continue on the men’s side of the Halfpipe World Cup equation, with last season’s Crystal Globe winner Ruka Hirano, Yuto Totsuka, Ryusei Yamada and reigning Olympic champion Ayumu Hirano all once again set for competition this season.

After ending the 2024/25 campaign with back-to-back World Cup victories in Calgary and Aspen to claim his third-straight Crystal Globe, Ruka Hirano went on to claim silver at the Engadin 2025 World Championships, while Totsuka took bronze. Totsuka also racked up two second-place World Cup finishes in Copper and Calgary after winning the season opener in Secret Garden.

Japan delivered not one but two World Cup podium sweeps last season in Copper and Aspen in stacked finals where five of the 10 finalists were Japanese. Ruka Hirano and Ayumu Hirano featured in both sweeps.

Australia’s Scotty James managed to keep the Japanese Halfpipe dominance at bay in Engadin to win a record-setting fourth World Championships title. James also beat Japanese riders to win the Laax Open to make it two World Cup podium finishes from four starts last season. At 31 years of age, James has amassed 17 World Cup podium finishes since 2009. He also won his seventh X Games gold medal ahead of runner-up Yuto Totsuka and bronze medalist Ayumu Hirano last winter.

Seventeen-year-old Alessandro Barbieri (USA) claimed his first World Cup podium finish in 2025 after finishing third in Calgary behind eventual Globe winner Ruka Hirano and X Games silver medalist Totsuka. Before his maiden Calgary podium, Barbieri’s best World Cup result was seventh during his debut 2023/24 season. On top of being the only non-Japanese rider not named Scotty James to get a Halfpipe World Cup podium last season, the teenager also has a silver medal from the Gangwon 2024 Youth Olympic Winter Games.

New Zealand’s Campbell Melville Ives could be on the verge of a breakout season after claiming five top-10 finishes from six starts in 2024/25. The 19-year-old finished one spot in front of Barbieri in the FIS Halfpipe World Cup standings based on those results, which included fourth place behind Barbieri in Calgary, and fourth place in Slopestyle in Cardrona (NZL).