Shaun White you sneaky little bugger. You can’t help yourself can you? You announce that you’re going to be at the Winter X Games Europe in Tignes this year and you go and piss off every other rider in the competition! How did he do it? Well, read on and you’ll find out!

The Winter X Games are pretty much the pinnacle of our winter sports world and when it comes to the Winter X Games Europe in Tignes, then we tend to go a little crazy in the office. It’s so close that you can smell it (in distance and not literally smell it of course) and there’s always a mountain of videos on their way in so we get to feed that lot to you as well. But what would the X Games be without controversy? We’ll get to that in a bit though.

First things first! There’s been a lot of practising in the pipe and on the slopestyle course for all the riders. Videos have been flying in left right and centre but they’ve all been skiing ones so you snowboarders out there will have to wait! Here’s some updates from the Atomic team:

Atomic: Euro X Games Training Day – SS

Atomic: Euro X Games Pipe Training

Seems that the slopestyle course has been trimmed down this year after losing the dog leg that slowed the riders down, and the gap between the jumps is a lot shorter as well. With those factors put in place it should make the course pretty competitive when it comes to the crunch. Halfpipes don’t really change much when you’re at the top events around the world so this isn’t going to be much different to other pipes that the riders have taken on but I’ve heard it’s super steep and super icy so we should have some pretty fast runs going on!

But the halfpipe is where the controversy is being held. I did mention that Shaun White may have pissed off the other riders and this is because of a ‘private training session’. There was meant to be a private training session in the pipe for only one rider between 9.30pm and 10.30pm – this was for Shaun but he decided not to turn up. It was under the guise of shooting for his sponsor, GoPro, but with him not turning up at all, the rest of the riders were pretty pissed off with the outcome. There was talk of him not being turning up to the event at all but that rumour has passed.
Our good friends at Snowboarder MBM and Mpora.de have filmed an exclusive interview with Shaun in his chalet and this will be posted up on Mpora tomorrow morning! But for now keep coming back to Mpora for highlights.

The Winter X Games is an even that’s stuck on every snowboarder’s or skiers calendar. It’s placed in the diary of everyone that works in the industry and it’s scribbled onto the hand of every fan out there. We’re no different at Mpora and we’re looking forward to this season’s Winter X Games. So much so that we’re over the moon that the schedule has been announced.

Interested as well? Well, here’s the event list:

THURSDAY, JANUARY 26
10:30 a.m. — 12:30 p.m. Men’s Ski Slopestyle Elimination
1:30 p.m. — 2:30 p.m. Women’s Ski Slopestyle Final
2:30 p.m. — 3:30 p.m. Snowboard Street Final
7:00 p.m. — 8:15 p.m. Snowmobile Freestyle Final
7:45 p.m. — 9:00 p.m. Men’s Ski Slopestyle Final

FRIDAY, JANUARY 27
10:30 a.m. — 12:30 p.m. Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle Elimination
11:30 a.m. — 1:00 p.m. Men’s and Women’s Skier X Qualifying
1:30 p.m. — 2:30 p.m. Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle Final
2:00 p.m. — 3:30 p.m.  Men’s and Women’s Snowboarder X Qualifying
3:30 p.m. — 4:00 p.m. Adaptive Snowboarder X Exhibition
6:30 p.m. — 8:00 p.m. Men’s Ski Superpipe Elimination 
8:30 p.m. — 10:00 p.m. Snowboard Big Air Final
9:00 p.m. — 10:00 p.m. Women’s Snowboard Superpipe Final

SATURDAY, JANUARY 28
9:30 a.m. — 10:20 a.m. Mono Skier X Qualifying
11:00 a.m. — 12:00 p.m. Women’s Ski Superpipe Final
12:30 p.m. — 2:00 p.m. Men’s Ski Superpipe Final
2:00 p.m. — 4:00 p.m. Men’s and Women’s Snowboarder X Final
6:45 p.m. — 9:00 p.m. Ski Big Air Final
7:30 p.m. — 8:30 p.m. Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle Final

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29
12:00 p.m. — 2:00 p.m. Men’s & Women’s Skier X Final
12:15 p.m. — 1:45 p.m. Men’s Snowboard Superpipe Elimination
2:45 p.m. — 4:00 p.m. Mono Skier X Final
7:00 p.m. — 7:45 p.m. Snowmobile Best Trick Final
7:45 p.m. — 9:00 p.m. Men’s Snowboard SuperPipe Final

For the first time the men’s ski slopestyle is going to be under the lights! Also, another first is the men’s ski superpipe finals being in the day. Two things that have never happend but I’m sure that freeskiing is going to be a sport that gets a lot of attention on the road to Sochi 2014.

Clear the diaries people the Winter X Games is coming…

After the debacle I spoke about yesterday with the UCI and their new title sponsor, Rocky Roads, the FIS have managed to make some headlines in the snowboarding world.

Terje Haakonsen wrote an open letter back in January to the FIS about the ruling of the qualification process. He states: “The Olympic system for snowboarding is wrong; preserving the status quo is not an option.” Pretty strong words form the Godfather of snowboarding but would it change anything? We were all hoping that the TTR would have some sort of say in the qualification process and, in a dream world, be able to control how snowboarding is judged in the Olympics.

Turns out that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) chose not to agree with Terje. The International Ski Federation (FIS) will oversee the qualification for snowboarding for Sochi 2014 as they did for Vancouver 2010. Riders and supporters alike were crossing fingers that the TTR would be selected to oversee the process but nothing came of it. Apparently the FIS approached the IOC two months early and received official approval leading us to think that there might be something going on behind the scenes.

Ok, so the Olympics regulations state that qualifications have to come from open competitions whereas the majority of the TTR events are invite only, thus putting a spanner in the works. This was never on the minds of the TTR as they did not want full control of the selection process. It seems that it was never going to be something the IOC and the FIS would have contemplated, and it’s something we’d expected anyway, but it’s never good to feel like a sport isn’t progressing in the way it should or at all.

The TTR released this statement:
“The TTR is greatly disappointed by the recent decisions made by the FIS in their meetings in Korea regarding field size, quotas and the qualification process for Sochi 2014. These decisions were made on an accelerated timeline without taking into account the interests of athletes and the sport of snowboarding. Despite TTR making every effort to work with the FIS both within the Freestyle Snowboard Task Force and independently, the FIS remains unwilling to accept any input regarding the Olympics. TTR however, remains open to future discussion with the FIS and will continue to work toward having an impact on the 2014 Olympics.”

I can’t help but think that the sports we love aren’t run by people who want to progress it in the way it should progress. But then that’s purely my opinion… what do you reckon?

Rider: Louie Vito
Photo: Pablo Azocar

First thing’s first, let’s take a look at slopestyle. Unlike last year, the weather decided that blue skies and sunlight would be better for this year’s comp in Cardrona. As standard it was a best-of-3 format and the girls were up to kill the course first. Kjersti Buaas and Jamie Anderson were the strong contenders after the first run and they stayed there until the podium beckoned them, later to be joined by Jordie Karlinski. Jamie takes the first slopestyle win of the season and with that a foot in the door for yet another title.

For the men’s slopestyle event there were some familiar names in the mix from the off. Mark McMorris and Sebastien Toutant dominated for the Canadian contingent. But with these two never wanting to settle for second it was a hard fought battle up to the wire with Seb finished in second but only by half a point! Completing the trio was Stale Sandbech who was stoked with his finish.

MPORA Action Sports >>

What’s a slopestyle win by Jamie Anderson if it’s not twinned with a win for Kelly Clark in the halfpipe? We’re continuing the battle from last season right into the 2011/2012 season and that’s something we don’t mind one bit! A lot of things seemed similar in the halfpipe with the podium finishing up with the same three as the Winter X Games Europe as Kelly Clark took top spot, followed by Hannah Teter and then Queralt Castellet.

As you’d expect from the men’s competition tens were absolutely everywhere especially in Ryo Aono‘s runs. He threw down back to back tens on his first to beat last year’s winner, Iouri Podladtchikov to the top spot. But the heartache didn’t end there for IPod as he was knocked down to third by twinkle-toed Louie Vito.

More Snowboarding Videos >>

The snow season may have kicked off early but we’re in for a huge wait now because that’s it until December. That being said I think we’re in store for another battle between Kelly Clark and Jamie Anderson, with the guys comp being wide open. Only time will tell…