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Burton’s European Open will be staged this coming year in Laax, Switzerland during 20-27th January. The only Open snowboard Event in Europe, this competition focuses on the two difficult disciplines of the superpipe and slopestyle. New highly innovative, boundary smashing tricks alongside a healthy dose of style are the key ingredients required to win here.

A combination of the best riders in the world, including the known legends, Olympic successes and world champions, together with a grass roots approach of enabling kids and juniors to compete means this free event is to be enjoyed by all, promoting snowboard in one of the best ways possible.

Over 400 riders compete head to head over a full week, both the superpipe and slopestyle are located on the Crap Sogn Gion, near to the mountain cable car station.

International live music shows in combination with great parties at the Riders Palace ensures the excitement continues well on into the evenings.

For snowboard trick tips to help you pull off moves similar to the snowboard legends of today try researching on the internet.

Similarly, if you fancy traveling further away from the controlled environments of the pistes and parks, into the deep backcountry, again the internet is a fantastic resource on everything you’ll need to know, from how to ride powder, costs of helicopters and the like, to avalanche safety skills.

Starting on the 08/31/06 the inaugural exhibition and competitions showcase, Xtreme week in Esquel, Argentina saw in excess of 150 eager snowboarders from all over the globe ready to challenge each other for the $35,000 (Pesos) worth of prizes, covered by four distinct disciplines. The Big Mountain event unfortunately had to be cancelled due to too little offpiste snow (no chance of improving riding through better technique or super fast snowboard wax here!), but the other three main events went ahead, Skier/ Boardercross, Big Air and Rail Line.

The Flypark, although small had a superb ambience with its full afternoon sunshine, stunning Patagonian views and well manicured jumps and the like, quite a rare thing in South American terrain parks.

Nico Lopez, the founder of Xtreme week and designer of the Flypark hopes to further improve on the reputation of the event and Flypark.

Winners of first places, pulling off a huge range of impressive snowboard stance / ticks, were as follows (men’s then females respectively):

ski Rail: Garrett Russell, Agustina Baruzzi;
ski Big Air: Sebastian Bocos, n/a;
Skiercross: Ramiro Brizzi, Chloe Georges;
Boardercross: Juan Beberagi, n/a;
Big Air snowboard: Hennin Martinsen, n/a;
Rail Line snowboard: Hennin Martinsen, Leticia Monaco

Hey everyone, a truly great snowboard competition is about to hit us at the end of this year. Kids, if you can, try and get one of your yearly family snowboarding holidays to simply coincide with this world class snowboard event.

Opening in Breckenridge, Colorado on December 14-16th 2006 the Chevrolet U.S. snowboard Grand Prix, a three-stop snowboard competition is only months away. Boasting a smaller more competitive selection of fields, a huge 22ft superpipe, boardercross and a first for full-field, full-length slopestyle course, this event looks as exciting as ever and will be hosted by a whole host of Olympic snowboard champions such as Shuan White, Hannah Teter and Seth Wescott.

After Breckenridge the competition continues in Mountain Creek, New Jersey on February 2-4th , this series subsequently finalizing its self at Tamarack, Idaho on February 24-26th.

Competition winners look set to win one of the largest prizes from a snowboard competition yet with over $300,000 in total prize money and the tradition of each acquiring a brand new top of the range Chevrolet truck. Not bad for a hard days work!

If you are dreaming of getting to grips with freestyle snowboard, e.g. snowboarding half pipes, visit http://www.snowboardwax.info/An-Introduction-To-Half-Pipes.php for some tips and advice.