Snow, Sport, Spirit

Snowboard pros from all over the world come to the Prestige World Cup.
MIA. from Berlin is main act at the LAAX OPEN Festival

The LAAX OPEN 2020, Europe's most renowned snowboard event, will take place from 13 to 18 January 2020. A whole week on the mountain around the Crap Sogn Gion and its mountain station GALAAXY will be all about snowboarding and freestyle. World champions, Olympic champions, newcomers and fans will mix on the ride down to the valley, where freestyle will be celebrated together in a festival mood in the rocksresort, even off-piste. The final highlight is the open air concert of MIA. at the rocksresort and a first-class DJ line-up at the Riders Club.

The World Snowboarding Event is endowed with 200.000 Swiss Francs in the disciplines slopestyle and halfpipe. A victory in LAAX at an OPEN event is much more than just getting the biggest slice of the prize money cake. It is an honour and a goal for every rider to enter the Hall of Fame. The names of the winners are a testimony to the fact that Freestyle Snowboarding and its movements are a part of the sport. Several times at the top of the podium were Kelly Clark, Chloe Kim, Natasza Zurek, Jamie Anderson, Arielle Gold, Enni Rukajärvi in the ladies' category, Peetu Piiroinen, Iouri Podladtchikov, Ayumu Hirano, Kevin Pearce in the men's category. They are joined by riders who once climbed the OPEN Olympus at Crap Sogn Gion, such as Isabel Derungs, Liu Jiayu, Doriane Vidal, Silje Norendal, Danny Davis, Andy Finch, Chris Sörman, Shaun White, Roope Tonteri, Stale Sandbech, Mark McMorris, Max Parrot, Scotty James and a few more.

Seit jeher – und nicht erst seit den OPEN Events ab 2005 – ist ein Sieg in LAAX mit hohem Prestige bei Ridern verbunden. Sei es bei José Fernandes, dem ersten europäischen Snowboard Profi, in den 80igern, Reto Lamm in den frühen 90igern oder Gian Simmen und Nicola Thost, den ersten Snowboard Halfpipe Olympiasiegern überhaupt, in den späteren 90igern, Xavier Delerue in den Boardercross Hochzeiten um 2000 und Nicolas Müller in den ersten Milleniumsjahren, heute Idol vieler Snowboarder. Alle waren scharf auf den LAAX Titel! Und schon immer zeugten die Snowboard Events in LAAX von Kultur. Das heisst Sport, Sprache, Design, Musik, Medien, Film, – sie drücken ein offenes Lebensgefühl aus, einen Lebensstil.

The main attraction is and remains snowboarding, freestyle. The practice of the sport itself. The tricks and flights, the airs and corks, performed by professionals as well as from the other star, are cheered by the crowd and judged by the judges. But at least one powder day has to be there for all participating riders, that is tradition. Just like the descent into the valley via the P60, a freestyle slope with more than 50 elements for jibbing and tricks.

Once you arrive downstairs, you will continue to experience and learn: in the Piazza Cafedeli, in the Freestyle Academy, in the steam bath of the rocksresort apartment, in the gym and during yoga in the Riders Hotel. In the rocksresort village with food stalls, shop talk in a relaxed atmosphere, chill out in a deck chair with a hip DJ sound, movies on the video wall. Finally, the outdoor supporting programme in the valley culminates in the open air live concert by MIA, the classic among the electropop combos, on Saturday, 18.01.2020, at 9 pm. Suitably after the halfpipe final night finale, which at 6 p.m. under floodlight at Crap Sogn Gion will be the galactic sporting highlight.