The 2026-27 U.S. Snowboard Rookie Team is announced

U.S. Ski & Snowboard announced its 2026-27 team rosters today. For both the Pro and Rookie team members.

Below is the full 2026-27 Rookie roster across both disciplines, with a quick look at each athlete's path here.

Halfpipe Rookie Team

Tristam Henkels — Henkels has been in the U.S. development pipeline for years, with 13 regional halfpipe events including 3 wins. He's competed at every tier — 9 Rev Tour halfpipe entries, 4 USASA Nationals appearances (including a national gold), 3 Futures Tour events with a win, and even 2 European Cup halfpipe appearances. The kind of comprehensive multi-tier resume the program tends to reward.

Toranosuke Komiyama — Featured in our profile of his unusual three-discipline season. Komiyama is the only rider on the 2026-27 Rookie Team to make BOTH the Halfpipe AND Slopestyle/Big Air rosters — a reflection of the dual-discipline depth he showed at every tier this season. 23 podiums across slopestyle, halfpipe, and rail jam.

Ava Lilly — Featured in our trajectory piece covering her three-year build from Futures Tour wins to Rev Tour gold. The 2025-26 season ended with two Rev Tour halfpipe wins and a bronze. Ava goes to the Rookie Team as one of the most decorated U.S. women's halfpipe development prospects in years.

Kaylee Tippit — Tippit picked up Rev Tour halfpipe medals at both Mammoth (bronze) and Aspen (silver) this season. She'd been competing on Rev Tour without a podium prior, and her 2025-26 spring breakthrough is the textbook profile of a rider ready to take the next step.

Aimee Wild — Wild has one of the broadest competitive footprints on the roster. 11 regional halfpipe events with 6 wins, 5 USASA Nationals halfpipe appearances (including a gold and 2 silvers), 6 regional rail jam podiums, and 2 Rev Tour halfpipe medals (one gold, one silver). Hailing from Colorado.

Slopestyle & Big Air Rookie Team

Gabby Boday — One of the most decorated multi-discipline athletes on the roster. 26 regional slopestyle events with 19 wins; 22 regional halfpipe events with 9 wins; 20 regional rail jam events with 16 wins; plus boardercross, slalom, and giant slalom appearances. National-level results in slopestyle (2 golds), Futures Tour wins, and a Rev Tour slopestyle gold. Boday's range across snowboard disciplines is rare on this roster.

Giada Brienza — The 2026 USASA National Champion in Snowboard Open Class Women's slopestyle, as covered in our Nationals wrap. The Open Class title is the elite tier at Nationals, with no age limit — winning it as a young rider sends a strong signal.

Caleb Dhawornvej — The 2026 USASA National Champion in Snowboard Open Class Men's slopestyle. (His sister Lily Dhawornvej was named to the Pro Slopestyle team in the same announcement — a notable family weekend.)

Colin Frans — Frans is a slopestyle / rail jam specialist with deep regional results — 20 regional slopestyle events with 10 wins, 21 regional rail jam events with 12 wins. Plus 6 Rev Tour slopestyle entries with a gold, a Futures Tour slopestyle win, and a national silver from the 2024-25 Nationals. The kind of track record that builds slowly and shows up everywhere.

Toranosuke Komiyama — Listed here in addition to halfpipe (see above). Two Rev Tour slopestyle wins this season (Mammoth and Aspen), plus four straight Futures Tour slopestyle golds in 2024.

Annabelle McCarthy — McCarthy earned two Rev Tour slopestyle medals this season (Mammoth bronze, Aspen silver). She was the only U.S. women's snowboarder to clear the 2-medal Rev Tour slopestyle threshold this year, as we noted in our rookie team eligibility piece.

What this means

A few quick observations on the roster:

• Komiyama is the only dual-discipline rookie, which matches what the data showed — he was the only U.S. snowboarder all season to clear the 2-Rev-Tour-medal threshold in BOTH halfpipe and slopestyle.

• Ava Lilly, Kaylee Tippit, Annabelle McCarthy, Toranosuke Komiyama, and Giada Brienza all appeared as standouts in our coverage this spring — the data flagged them, and the coaches did too.

• Several picks came from USASA Nationals Open Class wins (Brienza, Dhawornvej, Frans). The Nationals-as-pipeline-feeder pattern showed up clearly this year.

• Tristam Henkels is the rookie pick whose profile we hadn't covered in depth before. A name worth tracking through the 2026-27 season.

A coming-soon "Who's Who" piece will go deeper on each rookie's path, with full event histories. For now: congratulations to all 11 athletes. The program just got an interesting class.

Full event histories are linked from each name. If you spot a missing result, name spelling, or any data correction, the email is open.