Athletes Pushing the Boundaries at The Nines in Crans Montana. Video

Mountainwatch | Video

As the 2021/22 Northern hemisphere snow season winds down the final major event of the year, the Nines, has been on in Crans Montana, Switzerland over the past week.

Renowned for its creative, innovative design the Nines snowpack is a hotbed of progressive skiing and snowboarding, not surprising given the invite list consists of some of world’s best freestyle skiers and snowboarders  including Australian snowboarders Tess Coady and Valentino Guseli.

The Nines is often the scene for some “first ever” tricks  and this  year was no exception, Japanese  snowboarder Reira Iwabuchi landing the  world’s first frontside triple 126o by a woman. A few minuted later Canadian rider Laurie Blouin followed suit, landing the second-ever women’s cab triple 1260.

Then Japanese rider Hirot0 Ogiwra landed the world’s first 2160 by a snowboarder. Yep, six full rotations – makes you dizzy just thinking about it!

The Nines has a sense of community about it among the athletes and in a bit of an equipment switch Norway’s Birk Rudd, the 2022 Olympic big air skiing champion, swapped his skis for  a snowboard to land a backside triple 1440. Check it out at the 2:43 mark in the snowboard highlights video below.

The Nines is always a highlight week of the northern hemisphere season and for the invited athletes a fun way to wrap up a big competition season. Head to the Nines site for more videos and information on this year’s event.