What Laax Open Results Can Tell Us About The 2026 Winter Olympics

In a given Winter Olympics cycle, the Laax Open, the annual snowboarding (and, more recently, freestyle skiing) World Cup competition held in Switzerland each January, is typically the final qualifying event ahead of the Games.

And while it isn’t necessarily a blueprint for how the Olympics will go down, it can reveal plenty of hints as to who might land on the podium.

Take the Beijing 2022 Games. Five snowboarders who made the podium at that year’s Laax Open found themselves standing atop it once again in Beijing. American Chloe Kim won the Laax Open women’s snowboard halfpipe final, and would go on to win her second consecutive gold medal in Beijing. Spain’s Queralt Castellet earned Olympic silver after finishing in third at the Laax Open.

On the men’s halfpipe side, Japan’s Ayumu Hirano, like Kim, followed up a Laax Open victory with Olympic gold. Olympic bronze medalist Jan Scherrer of Switzerland had finished in second in his home country weeks earlier.

In women’s snowboard slopestyle, Australia’s Tess Coady took bronze at the Olympics after having earned the victory in Laax.

Of course, not everyone who competes at the Laax Open will compete at the Olympics, and vice versa. But there are a handful of trends and results from this year’s event, which concluded on Sunday, that might tell us what to expect at the Milano Cortina 2026 Games.

Men’s Halfpipe: Oceania Dominates

At the Laax Open, all three athletes who finished atop the men’s halfpipe podium hailed from Oceania.

Australia’s Scotty James took the win with one of the best halfpipe runs ever put down. His countryman Valentino Guseli came in second, and Kiwi Cam Melville Ives rounded out the podium in third.

All three had been ranked in the world’s top 10 coming into Laax and either have already qualified or will qualify for their nation’s Olympic teams. James was also the men’s top qualifier heading into the final.

“This year is a tough year; it’s an amazing competition,” James said on the broadcast after claiming his record fifth Laax Open title. “Two Aussies and a Kiwi on the podium, the Japanese are riding amazing…you’ve got to put your best foot forward this year to get a chance or a sniff at the podium, and I’m just grateful to be here.”

To James’ point, four of the top five highest-ranked men’s halfpipe riders in the world (Ruka Hirano, first; Yuto Totsuka, second; Ayumu Hirano, fourth and Ryusei Yamada, fifth) hail from Japan. In the middle of the pack, at third, is James himself.

Ayumu Hirano is always a favorite to win any event he enters, but in Laax, a violent fall that saw him break his board and bloody his nose took him out of contention in the final.

Will the Antipodeans carry their dominance into the Winter Olympics? There’s no telling what will happen on competition day. But there’s no question these three are in the podium mix.

U.S. Snowboarders Struggle To Reach Podium

Between the four halfpipe disciplines (men’s and women’s halfpipe and slopestyle), only one American, 16-year-old Lily Dhawornvej, landed on the podium in Laax.

Slopestyle

Laax marked Dhawornvej’s first-ever World Cup podium after getting promoted from the U.S. rookie team to the pro team for the 2025-26 season and makes her someone to watch in Livigno, where the Olympic snowboarding competitions will be held.

Dhawornvej was the only American in the 10-person women’s slopestyle final and fought through windy conditions to make the podium. The men competed first, and conditions were so poor that the women held a rider’s meeting to determine whether the final should even be held, narrowly deciding to move forward.

Dusty Henricksen and Sean FitzSimons were the two American men to qualify for the final, finishing in ninth and 11th place, respectively.

Of course, in no way do these results mean the Americans will struggle to land atop the slopestyle podium at the 2026 Games.

Two of the world’s top-ranked U.S. men, Red Gerard (third) and Jake Canter (sixth), have already qualified for the U.S. Olympic snowboarding team and sat out the events in Laax to train at home. In fact, men’s slopestyle is arguably the United States’ strongest snowboarding discipline; there are more riders ranked in the top 10 (five) than Team USA can bring to Italy.

Halfpipe

In men’s halfpipe, veteran Chase Josey finished highest among the Americans, landing just off the podium in fourth place. Still, it was a crucial finish for the two-time Olympian, who was ranked No. 4 among the Americans heading into Laax. The 500-plus FIS points he claimed help him make his case for being included on the Olympic roster when it’s announced on January 23.

Alessandro Barbieri, who is the top American in the world rankings (No. 8), finished in ninth.

Among the women, one name was conspicuously absent from the start list. Chloe Kim, who has already qualified for Milano Cortina 2026 and will attempt to extend her Olympic gold medal streak to three, sat out the Laax Open as she recovers from a torn labrum she suffered in a training run earlier this month.

Maddie Mastro, who came in second at the 2025 Laax Open, was the only American woman to make this year’s halfpipe final. After an uncharacteristic fall on her first run, she did enough on her second to finish in ninth place, still earning valuable qualification points as she looks to qualify for her third consecutive Olympics.

Olympic Podiums Could Include Multiple Rookies

Gaon Choi. Cam Melville Ives. Mia Brookes. Rise Kudo. Romain Allemand. Oyvind Kirkhus.

Remember those names, because these snowboarders making their Olympic debuts at the Milano Cortina Games could all find themselves in contention for a podium.

Choi, of South Korea, is just 17 years old and is currently ranked second in the world in women’s halfpipe behind Chloe Kim. She burst onto the scene in 2023 at X Games Aspen when she broke Kim’s record as the youngest X Games halfpipe winner. So far this World Cup season, she has won three consecutive events: the season opener at China’s Secret Garden and the Copper Mountain World Cup in December and then her win at Laax.

We’ve already established that 19-year-old Kiwi Cam Melville Ives is one to watch in men’s halfpipe.

Great Britain’s Mia Brookes, 19, won the Laax Open last year. While she didn’t compete this year, she’s definitely on podium watch ahead of the Milano Cortina Games, with a Cab 1440 flat spin up her sleeve.

At just 11 years old, Rise Kudo became the youngest member of the Japanese national team. In 2024, she made her World Cup debut and also took home gold in women’s halfpipe at the 2024 Youth Olympic Games. Now 16, Kudo is coming off a second-place finish in Laax.

Romain Allemand, 19, made history in Laax, becoming the first French rider to capture a men’s slopestyle World Cup victory. At the 2025 World Championships, Allemand finished just off the podium in fourth in both big air and slopestyle. Ranked 20th in the world coming into Laax, there’s no better time for Allemand to be amassing wins than leading into Milano Cortina 2026.

Anyone who’s dialed in to snowboarding knows about rising star Oyvind Kirkhus of Norway. The 23-year-old has some of the most technical and advanced tricks in slopestyle, making headlines in April 2025 for landing the world’s first switch backside quad 1620 at at Switzerland’s Swatch Nines. The big air jump at the Milano Cortina Games may not be big enough for him to attempt it in competition, but never say never. In Laax, Kirkhus finished in fourth in men’s slopestyle.

MiCo 2026 Will Set The Bar for Snowboard Progression

Not everyone is in favor of it, but there’s no question that every four years, the Olympics usher in a new level of snowboarding progression as riders dial up their degrees of rotation or inversion on flip and spin tricks.

But while the Olympics, specifically, do tend to flatten progression into these measurable criteria, by no means are other aspects of a snowboarding run, such as clean grabs and spinning multiple directions, cast aside. Sometimes, the judges miss things, but ultimately, degrees of spin and number of inversions are just one part of the judging criteria.

In the events leading up to the 2026 Games, we’ve seen the ways in which riders have leveled up the difficulty of their runs in preparation for what should be the most progressive contest the sport has seen.

Slopestyle

The windy conditions for the Laax Open slopestyle finals meant riders didn’t put down their most difficult runs. That doesn’t mean we won’t see them in Livigno.

Japan’s Kokomo Murase took the win among the women in Laax. Her run didn’t feature a backside triple cork 1620, the trick she became the first woman to land in November 2025, but we could absolutely see her stomp it at the 2026 Games.

Anna Gasser, who took third in Laax, has also upped her inversions of late. At X Games Aspen 2025, she took gold with a Cab triple cork 1260, one off-axis rotation more than the Cab double 1260 that earned her gold in big air at the Beijing 2022 Games.

Halfpipe

James has long been able to lay claim to one of the most difficult runs in the men’s halfpipe field, starting off with a switch backside double cork 1260. James is also able to spin all four directions—frontside, backside, Cab (switch frontside) and switch backside.

But more riders have caught up to James’ switch backside 1260, and this season, he’s been working on upping the difficulty of his run.

His hard work was on display in Laax, where he unveiled a run that included a switch backside double 1440. After being docked for missing a grab, he went back and put down what he’d intended: Cab triple cork 1440 indy, frontside double cork 1260 stalefish, backside double cork 1080 stalefish, switch backside double cork 1440 mute and backside double cork 1260 mute. It earned him a near-perfect score of 98.75.

Ruka Hirano became the first rider to land a switch backside double cork 1440 in competition in December at the snowboard halfpipe World Cup competition opener in China.

At the Beijing 2022 Games, gold medalist Ayumu Hirano was the only rider who even attempted a triple. At this year’s Laax Open, three athletes—James, Melville Ives and Ruka Hirano—landed them.

Melville Ives became the first athlete to land two triples in a single halfpipe run, going Cab triple cork, frontside triple cork, backside double cork, double alley-oop rodeo and switch alley-oop rodeo. South Korea’s Chaeun Lee attempted but could not land a run including two triples.

Ruka Hirano upped the ante by becoming the first to land two triples back-to-back in competition, but he squatted out the landing on the second, which docked his score.

“I really think that we’re probably gonna be in for one of the most exciting and thrilling and competitive Olympics in history among the whole field in the halfpipe,” James said. “It’s exciting for me, it’s exciting for everyone watching, and I can’t wait to go to battle with everyone.”