Secret Garden Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup: Stats Preview

2025/26 FIS Snowboard Park & Pipe World Cup – Halfpipe Secret Garden Stat Sheet

• The 2025/26 FIS Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup season consists of seven events, compared to five in 2024/25. Competitions will take place in Secret Garden (CHN), Copper (USA), Calgary (CAN), Aspen (USA), Laax (SUI), Ban-K (JPN) and Silvaplana (SUI). The first five events also serve as qualifiers for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games.

• Secret Garden (CHN) is hosting a Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup event for the sixth time after 2017/18, 2018/2019, 2019/20, 2023/24, and 2024/25. The venue also hosted Beijing 2022 Olympic halfpipe competition. 

Secret Garden Halfpipe World Cup – Men

• Ruka Hirano (JPN) won the Halfpipe Crystal Globe in the last three seasons. In 2024/25 he topped the standings ahead of his compatriots Yuto Totsuka (JPN) and Ayumu Hirano (JPN). Hirano is the first man to complete a halfpipe crystal globe three-peat.

• Ruka Hirano (JPN), Yuto Totsuka (JPN) and Scotty James (AUS) can all claim a record fourth Halfpipe Crystal Globe this season.

• Ruka Hirano (JPN) finished on the podium in four out of five Halfpipe World Cup events last season, with the season opener in Secret Garden (CHN) as the exception: 5th-3rd-2nd-1st-1st. No rider reached as many podiums last season.

• Japanese men have reached the podium in every Halfpipe World Cup event in the last seven years, a run of 28 events dating back to 8 December 2018, when Scotty James (AUS), Toby Miller (USA) and Chase Josey (USA) were 1st-2nd-3rd in Copper (USA). Japan’s podium streak started with Ruka Hirano (JPN) and Yuto Totsuka (JPN) claiming second and third place respectively in Secret Garden on 21 December 2018.

• Yuto Totsuka (JPN) is tied with Ross Powers (USA) for the most podium finishes in Halfpipe World Cup history on 21. Ruka Hirano (JPN) trails the pair by one, having reached 20 podiums in his career.

• Scotty James (AUS) won the Halfpipe Crystal Globe in 2013/14, 2016/17 and 2019/20. He was the only non-Japanese man to claim a Halfpipe World Cup victory last season, winning in Laax (SUI).

• Alessandro Barbieri (USA) was the only other non-Japanese rider to earn a halfpipe World Cup podium in 2024/25, finishing third at the season finale in Calgary.

• Scotty James (AUS) won a record fourth World Championships title in 2025. He is one of two men on double digits in Halfpipe World Cup wins with 10 victories, behind Ryo Aono (JPN) on 12.

• Ayumu Hirano (JPN) is the reigning Olympic champion in men’s Halfpipe.

• For the first time in almost eight years, no man representing the United States of America will start in a Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup event. The World Cup in Laax (SUI), on 20 January 2018, was the last in which no American men competed.

• Campbell Melville Ives (NZL) is aiming to become the second man representing New Zealand to finish on the podium in a men’s Halfpipe World Cup event, after James Hamilton’s (NZL) third place in Valmalenco (ITA) in 2008. Melville Ives recorded a career-best fourth place in the final World Cup event of the 2024/25 season in Calgary (CAN).

Secret Garden Halfpipe World Cup – Women

• Maddie Mastro (USA) claimed the Halfpipe Crystal Globe last season, ahead of Chloe Kim (USA) and Sara Shimizu (JPN). None of those three riders will compete in Secret Garden.

• Cai Xuetong (CHN) has won the Halfpipe Crystal Globe seven times, most recently in 2012/22. No other rider, male or female, has claimed more than four Crystal Globe trophies in Snowboard Park & Pipe.

• Cai Xuetong (CHN) is one victory away from equaling Tricia Byrnes (USA) on the all-time record of Halfpipe World Cup wins on 15.

• Cai Xuetong (CHN) has started in all five Halfpipe World Cup events held in Secret Garden (CHN) and has  never missed the podium there: 3rd-1st-2nd-1st-2nd.

• Choi Gaon (KOR) has reached the podium in three of her four career World Cup starts, with a sixth place in Laax in 2023/24 as the exception. She is the only rider from the Republic of Korea with a Halfpipe World Cup victory to her name.

• Sena Tomita (JPN) recorded her first World Cup victory when she won the final Halfpipe World Cup of the 2024/25 season in Calgary.

• Elizabeth Hosking (CAN) finished third in the final Halfpipe World Cup of the 2024/25 season. The last Canadian to win the World Cup in this discipline dates back to 2002 when Maelle Ricker (CAN) triumphed in Valle Nevado (CHI).

• None of the last 12 women’s Halfpipe World Cup events featured a European athlete on the podium, since Berenice Wicki (SUI) finished third in Calgary (CAN) in February 2023.

• Queralt Castellet (ESP) is the last European snowboarder to claim a World Cup win in this discipline when she triumphed in Copper (USA) in December 2022. She has not recorded a podium finish at a World Cup since that win.