Who's Who in the 2026-27 U.S. Snowboard Slopestyle & Big Air Rookie Team

The U.S. Snowboard Rookie Team announcement yesterday named 11 athletes across two roster splits: five in halfpipe, six in slopestyle and big air. Most snowboarding coverage will skip these names entirely — the Pro tier is where the headlines are. But the Rookie tier is where the development pipeline is actually working, and the data tells a real story about how each of these six athletes earned their spot.

This is the slopestyle / big air half. (The halfpipe deep-dive is coming separately.)

Toranosuke Komiyama

We've already written a full profile of Komiyama's 2025-26 season — he's the only U.S. snowboarder to qualify for Rookie Team consideration in BOTH halfpipe AND slopestyle on the published 2-Rev-Tour-medal threshold. He's listed on both rosters this year.

For context on his slopestyle path: Komiyama's Rev Tour slopestyle ledger this season was perfect at the top — gold at Mammoth on March 12, gold at Aspen on March 25. Two wins in two events entered. His 2024-25 season had set this up: four straight Futures Tour slopestyle golds (Northstar Feb 24, Mammoth March 4, plus halfpipe wins at Mammoth and Park City). The 2024 Nationals saw him win the Menehune (11-12) Boys slopestyle title and slalom title in the same week.

Eight years competing, multiple disciplines, a perfect Futures Tour record at junior level, two consecutive Rev Tour slopestyle wins this season. He's the rookie pick whose name was hardest to argue with.

Caleb Dhawornvej

Dhawornvej has the longest competitive history of any rookie on this roster — he's been in our database since December 2015. His first national medal came at the 2017 USASA Nationals, where he won the Snowboard 9 & Under Boys rail jam at Copper Mountain. That's an entire decade of competing before today's call-up.

The result that should have flagged him to the development pipeline was a 2022 Futures Tour Snowboard Men's slopestyle event at Park City Mountain — at age 13-14, Dhawornvej won the Open Class division. The Open Class field includes adults; a 13-14-year-old beating it at a Futures Tour stop is the kind of result that doesn't usually happen. He earned it again at the 2023 Nationals with a bronze in Open Class Men's rail jam.

The 2025-26 season produced two clean Rev Tour slopestyle silvers — Copper January and Mammoth March — and capped at the 2026 Nationals where he became the U.S. National Champion in Snowboard Open Class Men's slopestyle at Copper Mountain on April 2, as covered in our Nationals wrap.

His sister Lily Dhawornvej was named to the Pro Slopestyle/Big Air team in the same announcement — two siblings on national rosters for the same federation in the same week.

Colin Frans

Frans's first event in our database is December 2021 — about four and a half years ago, when he was 11 years old. The career arc since then has been steep:

• 2022 Nationals — silver in Snowboard Menehune (11-12) Boys slopestyle
• 2023 Futures Tour — gold in Snowboard Breaker (13-14) Boys (a Mount Snow event in January 2023)
• 2023 Nationals — gold in Snowboard 11-14 Boys rail jam
• 2024 Nationals — silver in Breaker Boys slopestyle, silver in 11-14 Boys rail jam
• 2025 Nationals — bronze in Open Class Men's rail jam, gold in Open Class Men's slopestyle
• 2026 Rev Tour — gold in Men's Snowboard slopestyle at Copper Mountain (January 16)

That 2025 Nationals Open Class slopestyle gold and the 2026 Rev Tour Copper win — done a year apart at the same venue — are a clean signal of the kind of consistent top-tier slopestyle skill the program rewards. Add 12 regional rail jam wins on top, and Frans's profile is a slopestyle-and-rails specialist whose results have steadily risen with each tier he's tested.

Giada Brienza

Like Caleb Dhawornvej, Brienza took home a U.S. National Title at the 2026 Nationals — she's the U.S. National Champion in Snowboard Open Class Women's slopestyle.

Her career trajectory shows the dual-discipline pattern that USASA development tends to produce. She's primarily known as a halfpipe rider — multiple Futures Tour halfpipe podiums in 2024 (a gold at Mammoth, plus medals at Copper, Park City, and Northstar) — and won the Snowboard Breaker Girls halfpipe at the 2024 Nationals. By 2025, she was reaching slopestyle podiums too, including a Rev Tour silver at Copper in January and a bronze in Open Class slopestyle at Nationals.

The 2025-26 season is when slopestyle clearly emerged as her ascendant discipline:

• January 16, 2026: Rev Tour Copper, gold in Snowboard Slopestyle Women (her first Rev Tour win)
• April 2, 2026: USASA Nationals, gold in Snowboard Open Class Women's slopestyle

Two slopestyle wins at the highest tiers within months. The selection to a slopestyle-and-big-air rookie roster reflects coaches' read that slopestyle is now her primary discipline — even though the deeper history shows real halfpipe range too.

Brienza's seven-year arc — from her first event at the start of 2019 — is exactly the kind of long-build trajectory the development system is supposed to identify and elevate.

Gabby Boday

Officially Gabriella Boday in our database; she goes by Gabby. The U.S. Snowboard team announcement listed her as Gabby Boday.

If you were going to pick the broadest competitive footprint on the entire 2026-27 Snowboard Rookie Team — across both halfpipe and slopestyle rosters — Boday's would be the answer. Her career in our database starts in December 2019.

The breadth is striking. In her career so far, she's competed and medaled across: - Snowboard slopestyle (her primary discipline) - Snowboard halfpipe (deep career — 22 regional events with 9 wins) - Snowboard rail jam (16 regional wins) - Boardercross (4 regional wins, plus national medals) - Slalom and giant slalom (8 regional wins each)

That's six disciplines with results. Most riders on this roster competed in 2-3. Boday's profile is the closest thing in the development pipeline to "all of snowboarding" still being someone's actual specialty.

The 2024-2026 timeline of qualifier-tier results gets specific:

• 2024 Futures Tour halfpipe — bronze at Park City (Feb 13), silver at Northstar (Feb 27), silver at Mammoth (Mar 6)
• 2024 Futures Tour slopestyle — gold at Park City (Feb 16), bronze at Northstar (Feb 27), silver at Mammoth (Mar 4)
• 2024 Nationals — Breaker Girls slopestyle gold, Breaker Girls halfpipe bronze, 11-14 Girls rail jam bronze, Breaker Girls boardercross bronze (4 medals across 4 disciplines at one event!)
• 2025 Rev Tour slopestyle — gold at Mammoth (March 20)
• 2025 Nationals — gold in Open Class Women's slopestyle
• 2026 Rev Tour slopestyle — silver at Copper (January 16)
• 2026 Nationals — bronze in Open Class Women's rail jam

The 2025 Mammoth Rev Tour slopestyle win was particularly notable — Boday took the Open Class Women's title at Rev Tour level at age 14-15. Like Dhawornvej's 2022 Futures Tour win, that's the kind of result that signals a development-pipeline athlete whose ceiling is well above her age class.

Annabelle McCarthy

McCarthy has the most concentrated career profile of the six rookies — primarily a slopestyle competitor with strong rail jam range. Her first event in our database is from March 2021, making her career about five years long going into 2026-27.

The progression has been steady:

• 2023 Nationals — silver in Snowboard Youth (15-16) Women slopestyle, bronze in Rail Jam
• 2024 Futures Tour slopestyle — gold at Park City (Feb 16), silver at Northstar, silver at Mammoth
• 2024 Nationals — gold in Snowboard Youth Women's slopestyle, silver in 15-22 Women's rail jam
• 2025 Futures Tour slopestyle — silver at Northstar, gold at Park City
• 2025 Nationals — silver in Open Class Women's slopestyle
• 2026 Rev Tour slopestyle — bronze at Mammoth (March 12), silver at Aspen (March 25)

Looking at the 2025-26 season specifically, McCarthy is the only U.S. women's snowboarder to clear the 2-Rev-Tour-medal threshold in slopestyle, as we noted in our rookie team eligibility piece. That single fact made her a near-lock for the rookie selection.

What's notable isn't just the medal count — it's the consistency. Look at her qualifier-tier history: across Futures Tour and Rev Tour combined, she's earned 7 podiums in slopestyle. Every single one is a 1, 2, or 3. There are no fourth-place finishes or sixth-place finishes mixed in. She either makes the podium or skips the event. That's the kind of profile that catches a coach's eye — a slopestyle rider with a low floor.

What to watch for in 2026-27

A few collective observations on what this rookie class looks like, going into next season:

The discipline depth is real. Komiyama and Boday both bring multi-discipline backgrounds (4+ disciplines each in their career data). Brienza brings two (HP + SS). The roster is not a pure-slopestyle group — it's slopestyle-leaning athletes who also have meaningful results in halfpipe, rail jam, or both. Whether that translates to better big air results next season (a discipline most of them have less data in) is the open question.

The age profile is young. Among the rookies whose age can be inferred from career length, several were competing in qualifier-tier Open Class divisions while still in Breaker or Menehune age classes — meaning they were beating older fields well before their age class would naturally have them at that tier. Dhawornvej's 2022 Open Class Futures Tour gold and Boday's 2025 Mammoth Rev Tour win are the most striking examples.

The Nationals-as-feeder pattern is clean. Three of the six rookies (Brienza, Dhawornvej, Frans) won 2025 or 2026 Open Class National Championships in their primary discipline. The "win Nationals → make Rookie Team" pipeline is alive and well — it's a clear signal coaches respond to.

Several of these names will be on the Pro roster eventually. Komiyama and Brienza in particular have profiles that look like Pro-tier picks within 2-3 seasons. The data doesn't predict roster decisions (we don't do that here), but the trajectory shape is consistent with riders who graduate quickly from the rookie squad.

The 2026-27 season opens in November/December. By then, every name on this list will have either built on their 2025-26 momentum or run into the much stiffer headwind of competing against established Rev Tour and Grand Prix fields. The data will tell us which.

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