Heavyweights and rising stars on hand for Snowboard Big Air World Cup season-opener at new Secret Garden venue
Nov 25, 2025·Snowboard Park & Pipe)
Anything could happen in Secret Garden (CHN) this week when a mixed field of rising stars and heavy hitters put all of their off-season training on display for the start of the 2025/26 FIS Snowboard Big Air World Cup season on Thursday.
Last season’s Big Air and overall Park & Pipe Crystal Globe winner Mia Brookes is one of several women who will miss the Big Air season-opening World Cup in China this week.
Along with Brookes, double Olympic Big Air champion Anna Gasser (AUT) is also absent from the women’s start list. The 34-year-old spent most of the summer recovering from a shoulder injury she sustained while surfing and has previously said she plans to retire after the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games.
Even without Brookes and Gasser, the field of 32 women in Thursday’s qualifications features plenty of firepower, with the Japanese team leading the way.
Japan’s Mari Fukada heads into Secret Garden as a favourite, coming off a season in which she finished with the same amount of FIS Big Air points as Brookes, but lost out on the Crystal Globe win to Brookes in a tiebreak.
Fukada is joined by compatriots Kokomo Murase and Reira Iwabuchi, who took gold and silver respectively at the Engadin 2025 FIS Snowboard World Championships ahead of Fukada’s bronze medal. With Momo Suzuki finishing fourth there at the World Champs, Japan’s Big Air supremacy was on full display on last season’s biggest stage, and another podium sweep this weekend is highly possible.
Other up-and-comers to look out for in the women’s field include U.S. rider Lily Dhawornvej. The 16-year-old finished fourth behind Suzuki in Aspen during her debut 2024/25 World Cup season and qualified for four finals out of eight World Cup starts across Big Air and Slopestyle. Dhawornvej also claimed bronze in knuckle huck at the X Games Aspen 2025 behind silver medalist Brookes and gold medalist Murase.
Beijing 2022 silver medalist Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (NZL) will also miss Secret Garden, with Murase the only Big Air medalist from Beijing 2022 contesting the first Big Air World Cup of the 2025/26 season and the first of three key qualifying events for Milano Cortina 2026.
Her younger sister Yura, 18, is also competing in Secret Garden. The younger Murase won Big Air gold at the Gangwong 2024 Youth Olympic Winter Games and will be reunited with the rest of the Gangwon 2024 Big Air podium in Secret Garden. Silver medalist Rebecca Flynn (USA) claimed her first World Cup podium last season with third place in Slopestyle in Cardrona (NZL), while Gangwon 2024 bronze medalist Lucia Georgalli (NZL) recently topped the 2025 FIS Australian New Zealand Cup in September.
Others capable of making some noise in Secret Garden this week include Beijing 2022 Slopestyle bronze medalist Tess Coady of Australia, Gasser’s Austria protogé Hanna Karrer, and China’s own Xiaonan Zhang.
The men’s field is led by last season’s double Globe winner Taiga Hasegawa. The 20-year-old won the 2024/25 Big Air and overall Park & Pipe trophies after posting two wins and two second-place finishes from nine starts. The 2023 World Champion almost made it back-to-back World titles in Engadin but claimed silver behind countryman Ryoma Kimata.
Twenty-three-year-old Kimata will be looking to continue that gold medal momentum this season after a mixed bag of World Cup performances in 2024/25 ranging from 48th place in Kreischberg to sixth place in Klagenfurt. Other Japanese names on the start list include 2025 X Games Big Air gold medalist Hiroto Ogiwara, Yuto Miyamura – who finished third in a stacked field at the Aspen World Cup in February – and Kira Kimura, who claimed third at Big Air Klagenfurt in January.
One of the best placed riders to challenge Japan’s Big Air dominance this week is Italy’s Ian Matteoli. The 19-year-old finished second in the Big Air standings last season behind Hasegawa and was runner-up twice behind Japanese riders at Klagenfurt and Beijing.
Many eyes will also be on reigning Olympic Big Air champion Su Yiming who shook off a shaky 2024/25 World Cup season with World Championships silver in Slopestyle at Engadin 2025. The 21-year-old’s best Big Air result last season was ninth place at Kreischberg.
Canada’s Eli Bouchard will also be hoping to start this season with a strong performance in Secret Garden after claiming his maiden World Cup victory in Aspen with one of the highlight performances of the season. Before stomping his signature triple moose flip on his way to victory in Aspen, the 17-year-old had never finished within the top 10 at World Cup level. Bouchard is currently in a battle with the GOAT Mark McMorris and Frank Jobin for one of the remaining two spots on the Canadian Olympic team, and the intra-team drama there is a storyline to keep an eye on over the next couple of months heading into Milano Cortina 2026.
Other notable names in the men’s field of 64 are Norway’s Oyvind Kirkhus and Marcus Kleveland, Rocco Jamieson (NZL) and Romain Allemand (FRA). Kirkhus, 23, amassed three top-five finishes in 2024/25, including third place at Klagenfurt. The Norwegian also landed the world’s switch backside quad 1620 at Switzerland's Swatch Nines in April. Jamieson claimed his first Big Air podium as runner-up in last season’s opening World Cup in Chur, while Allemand finished third behind Jamieson for a career-first Big Air podium. Kleveland, meanwhile, remains one of the rarest talents in all of snowboarding and a must-watch entity all of his own.
Competition in Secret Garden will begin with women’s qualifications at 9:10 China Standard Time (CST), followed by the men’s qualifications at 11:25 CST.
The top eight women and top 10 men from Thursday’s qualifications will progress to the finals on Saturday 29 November.
QUICK LINKS
2024/25 Big Air World Cup standings / results / highlights
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