2025/26 FIS Snowboard Slopestyle World Cup season preview
Dec 23, 2025·Snowboard Park & Pipe
The new year is approaching and so is the new 2025/26 Snowboard Slopestyle World Cup season, which is set to begin in Aspen (USA) in the first week of January.
With the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games in February, this season’s Slopestyle circuit features four World Cup events compared to five in 2024/25. The first two events will also be the last opportunity for any snowboarders who missed out on Olympic qualification via this season’s Big Air World Cup events to punch their ticket via the Slopestyle route, as any rider who qualifies for one competition also qualifies for their other, automatically doubling their Olympic medal hopes for Italy.
2025/26 SLOPESTYLE CALENDAR
Aspen (USA) has the honor of launching the new Slopestyle season, with the second Toyota U.S. Grand Prix of the season beginning on 7 January after Copper hosted the first of the two Grand Prix events in December. This is the first time Aspen is hosting the Slopestyle season opener, with Aspen also the first of two Slopestyle World Cup events which count towards qualification for Milano Cortina 2026.
From Colorado we head to Laax in Switzerland for the prestigious Laax Open on Crap Sogn Gion mountain. The 2026 edition also marks the 11th time in a row that Laax will host Europe’s premier snowboard contest for Slopestyle and Halfpipe. Slopestyle proceedings kick off on 16 January, with the finals on 18 January coming just one day before the Olympic Quota Allocation List is published on 19 January 2026. A total of 30 athletes per gender can qualify for Slopestyle and Big Air. For Olympic qualification purposes, Slopestyle and Big Air are considered one event with a combined maximum of four athletes from the same country per gender.
After Laax athletes will take a break from the World Cup circuit and head to Italy for the Milano Cortina 2026 Games, with Slopestyle competition beginning on 16 February.
Following the Games, the World Cup tour will resume in Flachau (AUT) on 19 March. The event marks the penultimate stop of the 2025/26 Slopestyle season after Absolut Park Flachauwinkl previously hosted the season finale and Crystal Globe decider in 2025. Flachau has a long history of hosting FIS World Cup competitions but the 2025 edition was the first time that a FIS Snowboard Park & Pipe World Cup event was held at the venue, which is also the home training ground of two-time Olympic Big Air champion Anna Gasser (AUT) and local snowboarding icon Clemens Millauer.
After the Flachau finals on 21 March it’s just a hop, skip and a jump back to Switzerland’s Silvaplana for the Slopestyle season finale beginning on 26 March. Silvaplana’s Corvatsch ski area is where the Engadin 2025 FIS Snowboard World Championships were held last season, and after a quick-fire World Cup season as well as the Milano Cortina 2026 Games, we’re likely to see Olympic and world champions reunite here for the discipline’s Crystal Globe decider.
RIDERS TO WATCH: WOMEN
Last season’s Crystal Globe winner Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (NZL) proved she is back and better than ever after also claiming a second consecutive World Championships gold medal in March. After injuring her ankle in December 2023, the 24-year-old marked her official return to competition in 2024/25 with second place at Laax, victory in Aspen in both Slopestyle and Big Air, followed by a third consecutive World Cup win at the Slopestyle season finale in Flachau to walk away with the discipline’s Globe. The New Zealander already has a full set of Olympic medals as the reigning Slopestyle champion, the Beijing 2022 Big Air silver medalist, and her Big Air bronze from the PyeongChang 2018 Games when she was just 16 years old.
Great Britain’s Mia Brookes finished second behind Sadowski-Synnott in last season’s Slopestyle World Cup standings but won the overall Park & Pipe Globe, as well as the Big Air trophy. The 18-year-old recorded four podium finishes from four Slopestyle starts last World Cup season, including victory ahead of Sadowski-Synnott in Laax, second place in Cardrona (NZL), and two third-place honors from Aspen and Calgary. On the back of such an incredible season, Brookes decided not compete at the 2025 World Championships but that down time gave the British teenager renewed energy to begin the new 2025/26 season with a Big Air victory in Beijing (CHN) on 6 December.
Japan’s Kokomo Murase finished within the top four of all her Slopestyle World Cup starts last season, including victory at Cardrona, third place at Laax, and second at Aspen respectively. The 21-year-old narrowly missed out on a fifth podium in Flachau in fourth place, but made up for it with silver behind Sadowski-Synnoatt at Engadin 2025, as well as becoming the Big Air World Champion. The Beijing 2022 Big Air bronze medalist is among a stacked team of Japanese snowboarders hoping to compete at Milano Cortina 2026, with Murase keen to add an Olympic Slopestyle medal to her many accolades.
Fellow Japanese riders Mari Fukada and Reira Iwabuchi are also never far away from the Slopestyle podium, with 18-year-old Fukada finishing fourth at the 2025 World Championships while 24-year-old Iwabuchi claimed bronze behind runner-up Murase. Iwabuchi was also one spot behind Murase in Big Air at Engadin 2025 with silver. During the 2024/25 season, Iwabuchi was fourth and fifth at Cardrona and Laax respectively, while Fukada won the Calgary World Cup and finished third at the season finale in Flachau. Eighteen-year-old Fukada also started the new 2025/26 season by winning the Big Air season opener in Secret Garden (CHN) and leading a Japanese podium sweep alongside Iwabuchi and Miyabi Onitsuka.
Australia’s Tess Coady appears to have put a nagging shoulder injury firmly behind her by starting the 2025/26 season with a promising fourth place and eighth place in Big Air in Secret Garden and Beijing respectively. The 25-year-old contested just two World Cup events in 2024/25 – both in Slopestyle – to finish fourth and sixth at Calgary and Flachau respectively. After claiming Slopestyle bronze at the Beijing 2022 Games, the Australian is hoping to qualify for her second Games at Milano Cortina 2026.
RIDERS TO WATCH: MEN
Last season’s Crystal Globe winner Cameron Spalding (CAN) topped the field at Cardrona and Laax – with Cardrona his maiden World Cup victory since joining the circuit in 2022 – a year after teammate Liam Brearley won the 2023/24 Globe. After winning the Globe in 2023/24, Brearley’s subsequent season featured no podiums until he became World Champion at Engadin 2025, while Spalding finished sixth. Twenty-year-old Spalding and 22-year-old Brearley both grew up watching Canadian snowboarding icon Mark McMorris winning every accolade imaginable as well as three Olympic bronze medals. The 32-year-old has had a rocky start to his 2025/26 campaign with two Big Air finishes in 35th and 27th place in Secret Garden and Beijing respectively, however, with Brearley recently announcing that a knee injury will keep him out of the upcoming Olympics, McMorris’ path to his fourth go-around at the O-show should be assured.
Red Gerard (USA) was runner-up to Spalding in last season’s Slopestyle standings after he was second behind Spalding in Laax and again the runner–up at the discipline’s season finale in Calgary. Gerard has already qualified for Team USA ahead of Milano Cortina 2026, which will be his third Games. Gerard finished just outside the podium in fourth place at Beijing 2022 after becoming the PyeongChang 2018 Slopestyle champion at just 17 years old. Gerard also has back-to-back X Games gold medals from 2025 and 2024 to his name, and his World Cup win record includes four victories on home snow at Mammoth Mountain in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022. Of his 18 Slopestyle World Cup starts, exactly half were podium finishes with an additional two results within the top five.
Up-and-comer Oliver Martin (USA) seemed to come out of nowhere last season when he ended his debut World Cup tour by beating Gerard at the Calgary season finale. But the then 16-year-old had been quietly working behind the scenes to move up the ranks from 49th place at his first-ever World Cup in Cardrona, to just outside of the Big Air podium on home snow in Aspen, then topping the podium in his seventh World Cup start. Martin didn’t stop there, wrapping up his season with Slopestyle and Big Air bronze at Engadin 2025.
Reigning Olympic Big Air champion Su Yiming (CHN) ended last season without any top-10 finishes in Big Air but it was a different story in Slopestyle. The 21-year-old qualified for the final in all of his Slopestyle starts in 2024/25 and was runner-up in Aspen, then wrapped up the season with silver at the 2025 World Championships. Su now begins the 2025/26 Slopestyle season having won the Big Air Crystal Globe in the lead-up to the Christmas break after securing two consecutive victories on home snow in Secret Garden and Beijing.
Other riders in the men’s field worth mentioning are Francis Jobin (CAN) and Norway’s Mons Roisland and Marcus Kleveland. Jobin bested a stacked field in Aspen to claim his maiden World Cup victory last season. Roisland finished one spot above Jobin in fourth place in the men’s Slopestyle standings after he was runner-up at Cardrona and qualified for a further two finals, while teammate Kleveland was third at the season finale in Calgary, his best results from three Slopestyle events.
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