Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games: Big Air and Slopestyle Preview

While the start of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games officially comes on Friday, 06 February, with a multi-city Opening Ceremony that promises a uniquely Italian kick-off to 16 days of Olympic action, for the Snowboard Park & Pipe community and snowboard fans worldwide all eyes are on focused on Thursday and the monolithic jump structure at the base of the Livigno Snow Park venue, where men’s Big Air qualifications will get the ball rolling on the XXV Olympic Winter Games on Thursday.

The first of what will be 12 Olympic Park & Pipe competition phases across qualifications and finals for women and men, Thursday’s qualifications are the beginning of an Olympic Winter Games where the Big Air, Slopestyle, and Halfpipe events - now firmly established as Olympic fan favourites around the world - will again play a starring role. 

While the full Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Snowboard programme can be found here, below we’ll get into a brief overview of what to watch out for over the coming weeks of Park & Pipe action in Livigno.

BIG AIR

Men’s qualifications on Thursday represent the first FIS-governed competition action of the Milano Cortina 2026 OWG. Men’s finals will be following taking place on 07 February, women’s wualifications’s on the 8th, and women’s finals on the 9th. All big air competition phases will be going down under the Livigno Snow Park lights beginning at 19:30 CET. 

On the men’s side of things, the reigning Olympic Big Air champion Su Yiming (CHN) comes into competition in Italy on an absolute heater, with the 21-year-old taking two World Cup victories in his two starts on the season on his way to winning the first Crystal Globe of his career.

With perhaps the best switch backside 1980 in the game to his credit and an ability to land essentially any of his tricks under the heaviest pressure and/or in the most marginal of conditions, Su is the the de facto big air favourite and more than capable of going back-to-back as big air gold medallist.

With that being said, Su is set to face down some heavy challenges, most notably from back-to-back X Games big air winner Hiroto Ogiwara (JPN), who just two weekends ago stomped his second 2340 in competition to leave the rest of the field in his snow dust. 

Still the only rider that we know of who has stomped the 6.5 rotation trick, with the information we have right now it seems that Ogiwara is in a league of his own when it comes to pure spinning power, though his Japanese teammates like 2024/25 Big Air Crystal Globe winner Taiga Hasegawa, Big Air World Champion Ryoma Kimata, and Kira Kimura are not far behind.

Also not far behind is Italy’s own Ian Matteoli, who became the first rider to land a 2160 in competition at Beijing in December 2024. While Matteoli has struggled on the World Cup tour so far in 2025/26, if he can get his stomping legs back under him in time for his home Olympic competition he could thrill the Italian fans with an early medal this weekend.

According to the criteria the judges have been working with over the past few seasons it isn’t all about spin-to-win, however, which is where some of the more creative riders like Rene Rinnekangas (FIN), Marcus Kleveland (NOR), Eli Bouchard (CAN), and Rocco Jameson (NZL) could factor into the podium equation. Each of these riders has their own approach to physics-bending Big Air tricks that can score just as highly as their uber-spinning competitors. And, with FIS Big Air competition final scores coming as the combined total from two tricks spun in different directions, having a varied arsenal is of critical importance. 

The women’s big air event is set to be one of the most must-watch competitions of the entire Games, with Kokomo Murase (JPN), Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (NZL), Mia Brookes (GBR), and Mari Fukada (JPN) the four titans at the top and barely a hairsbreadth of separation between their capabilities. Meanwhile, two-time reigning Big Air gold medallist Anna Gasser will be looking to play catch-up as she returns from an off-season injury.

Reigning Big Air World Champion Murase comes into Milana Cortina fresh off an X Games big air victory where she became the first woman to land a backside triple cork 1620 in competition. Also the first woman to land two triple corks in the same competition - which she did way back in December 2024 at Copper Mountain - Murase is arguably the most explosive rider in women’s big air…when she’s on her game. And while her game has been inconsistent over the past season and a half, a win at the 2026 Laax Open slopestyle and her X Games triumph two weekends ago suggest it’s back in a big way.

The rider who could have the most to say about Murase’s big air supremacy is Sadowski-Synnott, who stomped a backside triple cork 1440 on her way to X Games silver behind Murase in Aspen. Also boasting a switch backside 1260 that next to no-one in the women’s field can match, Sadowski-Synnott’s one-two punch is as strong as it gets. The fact that we haven’t seen much of her in competition this season should actually be of some concern to the rest of the women’s field, because it likely means the 24-year-old has been putting in training reps away from prying eyes and working on tricks that no one has seen or is ready for.

Then there’s Mia Brookes - one of the most stylish riders on the planet who just so happens to boast a repertoire of tricks that puts her in a league of her own. While Brookes’ biggest strengths can be seen on the slopestyle course (where her rail game rivals a good chunk of the men’s field), Brookes’ flat-spinning switch frontside 1440 and ever-improving double cork capabilities more than keep her in the conversation with Murase and Sadowski-Synnott. It’s probably also worth noting that the 19-year-old walked away with the Big Air and Park & Pipe Overall Crystal Globes for her efforts last season.

Then there’s Mari Fukada, the dark horse in the race if only because her name is a little less well-known than the three riders already discussed. Fukada famously won her very first World Cup start at Copper Mountain in 2022, and last season tied Brookes in points atop the Big Air standings, only to lose out on the Globe due to a tiebreaker. Fukada’s most recent victory came at this season’s Secret Garden Big Air in November, and with a myriad of 12’s and 14’s in her trick arsenal she could very well rewrite the script come time for the women’s competition on 09 February.

Anna Gasser will go down as one of the best and most successful competition riders of all time regardless of her performance here in Livigno. While the back-to-back Olympic Big Air gold medallist from PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022 would love to contend for the three-peat, questions remain about fitness level after she missed all but one of the 2025/26 World Cups so far due to a shoulder injury suffered in the off-season. 

If there’s one thing Gasser has exhibited over the course of her career, however, it’s an ability to step up when it matters most. And in this Milano Cortina Olympic Winter Games, which is in all likelihood her last, you can count on her to push in all her chips one more time. 

SLOPESTYLE

Slopestyle at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games will close out snowboard competition for these Games, with both women’s and men’s qualifications taking place on 16 February, women’s finals on the 17th, and men’s finals on the 18th.

With no Slopestyle Olympic Test Event taking place in the seasons leading up to the Games due to construction on site, the Park & Pipe Olympians are all on an equal footing in coming into this competition with no prior knowledge or experience on the course. 

With that being said, the Olympic Slopestyle course this time around is not intended to be a star all on its own, as we saw last time around in Beijing with the Great Wall-themed venue. And this is by no means a bad thing - instead, what the course builders from Schneestern have focused on is creating a venue with big, clean features designed to allow the tricks from the world’s best to shine through. As it should be. 

For both the men and the women, the riders-to-watch list from Big Air applies to Slopestyle as well, though with a few notable additions. 

Riders like 2018 Olympic Slopestyle gold medallist Red Gerard (USA), 2024/25 Slopestyle Crystal Globe winner Cameron Spalding (CAN), Aspen U.S. Grand Prix Winner Jake Canter (USA), and 2026 Laax Open winner Romain Allemand could all factor into the Slopestyle podium equation.

However, three time Olympic bronze medallist and 2026 X Games Slopestyle winner Mark McMorris has become a looming question mark in proceedings, after the 32-year-old suffered a heavy crash in Wednesday night’s big air training. The latest update from Canada Snowboard suggests he’s feeling well and back with his team, but it remains to be seen if we’ll find his name on the start list come competition time. 

For the women, the top riders for Big Air are the same top riders for Slopestyle, name-for-name. 

Sadowski-Synnott is both the reigning Olympic Slopestyle gold medallist and the reigning Slopestyle World Champion - the latter title being her third gold and her fifth total medal in slopestyle to lead the all-time World Champs list for women’s Park & Pipe.

Murase currently leads the Slopestyle World Cup standings after claiming the 2026 Laax Open victory, earned the silver medal behind Sadowski-Synnott at the Engadin 2025 World Championships, and finished third behind Brookes and Sadowski-Synnott at the 2026 X Games slope competition. With 12 Slopestyle World Cup podiums to her name after her Laax Open win, Murase is now tied with Anna Gasser atop the all-time top-3s list with 12.

Then there’s Brookes, the 2023 World Champion, 2026 X Games winner, 2024/25 Park & Pipe Overall Crystal Globe winner and one of the most universally renowned riders in snowboarding.  Brookes bested Sadowski-Synnott in the X Games just two weeks ago, putting herself firmly in the Gold Medal Favourite Category at the last tune-up before the Games.

Along with Gasser and Fukada, keep an eye on Reira Iwabuchi. A double medallist at the Engadin 2025 World Championships, with silver in big air and bronze in slopestyle, Iwabuchi has been one of the most consistent podium threats on the World Cup tour for nearly a decade. A two-time fourth-place finisher at the Games, Iwabuchi will be looking to step it up into the medals this time around at Milano Cortina 2026

FULL MILANO CORTINA 2026 SNOWBOARD PROGRAMME