This story was published in Volume 1, Issue 2
ASPEN, Colo. — Standing at 20-feet-high and 560-feet-long, the superpipe is the pinnacle of snowboard competition. Shaun White put the event on the map at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy, where he won gold. Two decades later, he’s trying to put another pin in the map with a new generation of athletes.
Outside of the Olympics, few competitions solely focus on snowboarders. White recognized this and launched the Snow League in 2025 as an attempt to fill that space. The league gives a platform for athletes who don’t compete in the Olympics or X-Games and often disappear on the road to the spotlight.
The Snow League’s inaugural season had four stops, starting in Aspen, before heading to Chongli, China. The tour then returned to Aspen before finishing in Laax, Switzerland.
“I had my moment, and I feel like this is the new future tour that’s gonna take these athletes to the next level, something I’ve never even achieved,” White told the media after the first stop in Aspen.
The Aspen superpipe is arguably the most famous pipe in the world. As host of the X-Games and Olympic qualifiers, it stands out as a spectacle. On stop three of the Snow League, it once again sits as the stage for the growth of snowboarding.
The Snow League plays out in a different way than any other snowsport. While normal snow competitions compete in a pool, the league puts athletes head-to-head.
“This new format has been so refreshing for the halfpipe,” Maddy Schaffrick told the media before stop three.
All talk was about creativity. While a lot of the athletes were coming off the Olympics, the differences in the athletes’ approaches were clear.
“I am really happy to just be here, I am certainly taking a lot of inspiration from that night [during the Olympics]. These guys are crazy, now we’re at Snow League, it’s gonna be crazy as well,” Jake Pates said.
When Alessandro Barbieri told the media “Amplitude is king” at the start of the weekend, Kaishu Hirano took it to heart. Being towed in by four people, his run truly had one goal: to set the big air record. Launching 25 feet, 2 inches from the lip of the halfpipe, he bested his own world record of 24 feet, 4 inches set in 2022.
Hirano is on a record-setting streak. After breaking his own world record in Aspen, he did it again during the fourth and final event of the season in Switzerland, going another 2 inches higher.
The league is built around allowing athletes to perform their own way. Echoing an agreement that they made in China, Ryusei Yamada and Yuto Totsuka faced off against each other in a unique fashion. Both riders slid down the Aspen halfpipe before dropping in for one attempt at a trick they agreed on: a switch alley-oop double backside rodeo 900. Yamada took the win before opening up the second round with a fall. Totsuka took advantage, pushing the head-to-head to sudden death.
With one run left to decide the men’s winner of stop three, everyone expected something huge. So when both athletes fell on their last run, the crowd stood silent, waiting for the judges to announce a winner based on the unexpected runs. Yamada had one trick over Totsuka, pushing the judges to award the win to the former. It secured Yamada Aspen 2026 and 100 points towards his goal of Snow League champion.
The margin of error was mere inches, and big air meant big crashes. Ryan Wachendorfer pushed the limits and crashed in practice. However, he could not be kept down and came back to drop in during the last chance qualifiers. While his injury did not keep him away, he was unable to move on to the finals.
One athlete stood out in particular. Sara Shimizu, a 16-year-old from Otsu, Japan, is being called the future of snowboarding. Making her Snow League debut, she said her goal was to just participate, but she ended up winning the stop.
“Means so much,” Shimizu said.
She put up a near-perfect run, scoring a 94.5 out of 100, making it the highest of the women’s field. She executed the same run at the 2026 Olympics, earning fourth. Shimizu said it was her cleanest attempt yet.
The third stop on the Snow League ended with a party and performance by Wyclef Jean. Athletes danced together on the stage, spending time as a community. At the final stop in March, Sena Tomita and Totsuka won the women’s and men’s titles for season one. As the weekend of stop three came to a close, with music and dancing in the foreground, the sun set on the Aspen halfpipe.
As White said, “The future of winter sports competition is rising.”
