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Spin To Win | Teenage Hiroto Ogiwara Lands World First 2160

Japan's human cork-nado goes MEGA in Switzerland

Above: Hiroto in action | PC: Markus Fischer, The Nines

The Nines is infamous in the contest scene for myriad reasons- the insanely creative course design, the exclusive invite list, the beer shoes… but more than anything the event itself it has become synonymous with progression.

This year we were treated to another week of envelope pushing riding, with athletes from around the globe testing their limits and redefining what’s possible to throw down on a snowboard. The Japanese contingent were on an absolute tear in Crans Montana this year, with not one, but two world-first landings. Reira Iwabuchi stomped the first women’s Frontside Triple 1260 and 16-year-old Hiroto Ogiwara with his whirling dervish Backside 2160.

10 years ago, we were getting mind boggled at 14’s and it was unimaginable to think that we could progress much past this point, let alone at this rapid pace. Yet here we are- watching a kid who hasn’t even finished puberty spin six full 360’s and land with time to spare. What a world we live in.

There’s been some contention as to whether it also counts as the first quintuple cork, but we’re not FIS judges (thank fuck for that), so we’ll leave it up to you to decide on that front. Either way this teenager has just brought some real life SSX shit to fruition on the world stage. How much further can we push it? This is a big step in the rotational arms race that is professional Big Air, but to add an additional spin surely the jumps will have to get sizeably bigger.

Whatever your opinions on ‘spin to win’ and the future of competitive snowboarding this crazy feat of athleticism doesn’t detract from other aspects of the sport, and if you’d rather watch reruns of Terje tweaking methods then more power to ya. You can sit there and complain all you want about how you don’t like this side of snowboarding, but this is progress and progress isn’t measured linearly in snowboarding. It isn’t one or the other, style and amplitude aren’t mutually exclusive. So, congrats Hiroto, big up Reira and hats off to all the riders who put their bodies on the line to get us to this insane point in snowboarding.

Reira Iwabuchi | PC: Markus Fischer, The Nines

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