The 2026-27 FIS Snowboard Halfpipe World Cup — where, when, and who to watch

The FIS has released the proposed 2026-27 Snowboard Park & Pipe World Cup calendar, and for halfpipe fans, it's a packed schedule: six World Cup stops across four months, ending just before the 2027 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships in Montafon, Austria (March 7-22, 2027).

Every World Cup event this season is a Worlds qualifier, which means the field will be at full strength and every podium matters.

The schedule

A few things to notice:

Three venues do double duty — Laax (the legendary Laax Open), Aspen (the U.S. Grand Prix at Buttermilk), and Silvaplana (the season finale) all run both halfpipe and slopestyle in the same week. If you can only travel to one stop in person, these are the best value — two disciplines, world-class fields.

The season finale moves to Silvaplana again. This is the same venue that closed out the 2025-26 season. Crystal Globes get decided here.

Worlds drops between Aspen and Silvaplana. From March 7-22, 2027, the world's top halfpipe riders compete at Montafon in Austria for World Championship titles. That's a third week of major competition tucked between the last two World Cups — meaning riders will be in peak form for a remarkable five-week window in Feb-April.

Why watch halfpipe live, in person

We're a results site, not a travel guide. But on this one, we feel strongly: halfpipe is the snowboarding discipline that loses the most on a screen.

A halfpipe is roughly 22 feet deep, 60 feet wide, and 600 feet long. When a rider drops in, gets 25+ feet of air off each wall, and lands a switch backside double cork 1440 — the scale and physics of what just happened are impossible to convey through a camera. Live, you see how high they really go. You hear the snowboard hit the snow on landing. You feel the silence in the crowd before a final run, and the noise after.

Slopestyle and big air translate fine to TV. Halfpipe doesn't.

If you have any flexibility on travel this winter, the six venues above are the entire menu of where the world's best halfpipe snowboarders will be competing. Some are easier to visit than others:

• Copper Mountain (Dec 17-19) — Easy access for Americans. I-70 from Denver. Halfpipe sits right at the base of the resort. Lift-ticket access, free spectator viewing.
• Aspen (Feb 25-28) — The U.S. Grand Prix at Buttermilk. Major venue, huge crowds, real X Games-style atmosphere. Lodging fills up fast — book early.
• Laax (Jan 14-16) — Switzerland. The Laax Open is one of the most respected events on the calendar. The course is among the most pristine in the world. If you've ever wanted an excuse to take a week in the Swiss Alps, this is it.
• Calgary (Feb 17-18) — Canada Olympic Park. Easier travel from western North America. Smaller, more intimate venue than the marquee stops.
• Silvaplana (Apr 1-4) — Engadin valley, Switzerland. The season finale, with Crystal Globes on the line. Spring conditions, dramatic mountain scenery.
• Secret Garden (Dec 9-11) — Beijing 2022 Olympic venue. Hardest for most Americans to reach, but the historical significance of the venue and the early-season excitement make it special.

Americans to watch — the 2026-27 Pro Halfpipe Team

The U.S. Snowboard Pro Halfpipe roster for 2026-27 was announced last month. Twelve names. Some are returning veterans, some are coming off breakout seasons, and a few are at career inflection points heading into Worlds.

Chloe Kim is the headliner. Three-time World Champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist, eight-time X Games gold. Her 2025-26 season was disrupted by a shoulder injury suffered in training before the Laax Open, which kept her out of multiple events. A healthy Chloe Kim is the rider to beat at every stop she enters. Whether she's healthy and competing at every event will be one of the season's biggest open questions.

Maddie Mastro won the Crystal Globe in 2024-25 and was on the podium throughout the Olympic season. She's the only U.S. rider besides Kim who has consistently challenged the Japanese contingent in recent seasons. Her run at Laax 2025 — where she became the first woman in snowboard halfpipe competition history to land two double corks in a single run — set a new bar for the women's field.

Maddy Schaffrick finished tenth overall in the 2025-26 Halfpipe World Cup standings — a quiet but real result that put her squarely in the elite tier. She's one to watch as she builds on that platform.

Alessandro Barbieri is the most exciting name on the men's side. Now 18, Barbieri took bronze in Calgary in February 2025 (his first World Cup podium) and added another bronze at Aspen in January 2026. He is the only American man to reach a Halfpipe World Cup podium in the last three years. The last U.S. man to actually win a Halfpipe World Cup was Shaun White, in January 2018. Barbieri is the closest the U.S. has had to ending that streak — and at 18, his ceiling isn't visible yet.

The rest of the Pro roster: Sonora Alba, Bea Kim, Levko Fedorowycz, Lucas Foster, Kade Martin, Jake Pates, Chase Blackwell, Ryan Wachendorfer. Several of them entered Pro after strong development-tier seasons that we tracked in our Rookie Team coverage.

Pro Halfpipe Rookies for 2026-27 are also worth tracking, as we covered in our Slopestyle Rookie Who's Who: Tristam Henkels, Toranosuke Komiyama, Ava Lilly, Kaylee Tippit, and Aimee Wild. Rookie-team members typically get limited World Cup starts but often appear at the U.S. domestic stops (Copper, Aspen) as part of building toward future seasons.

International riders to watch

The truth about men's halfpipe in the modern era: it's dominated by Japan, with Australia as the consistent challenger. The 2025-26 podium across six World Cup events featured five different winners — Ayumu Hirano (JPN), Ryusei Yamada (JPN), Valentino Guseli (AUS), Yuto Totsuka (JPN), and Scotty James (AUS). All five should be back next season.

Yuto Totsuka (Japan) ended 2025-26 as the men's Crystal Globe winner — his fourth career Crystal Globe. He now has more men's halfpipe World Cup podiums than any rider in history (22+). At his peak he's nearly unbeatable. Heading into a Worlds year, expect him to peak again.

Ayumu Hirano (Japan) is the reigning Olympic champion (Beijing 2022) and won the 2025-26 season opener in Secret Garden. His all-or-nothing approach — the highest highs, the occasional crash — makes him the most exciting rider to watch live.

Ruka Hirano (Japan) — Ayumu's younger brother — won three consecutive Crystal Globes from 2022-23 through 2024-25. The first man ever to three-peat in the halfpipe discipline.

Ryusei Yamada (Japan) rounds out the Japanese top tier. The depth of the Japanese halfpipe program produced the unprecedented stat that Japanese men reached the podium in every halfpipe World Cup event between December 2018 and January 2026 — a streak of 30 events before Calgary 2026 finally broke it.

Scotty James (Australia) has 10 career World Cup wins, four Crystal Globes, and a record four wins at Laax alone. He won the 2025 World Championships title — a fourth Worlds gold. He'll be 32 by the time of the Montafon Worlds. Whether this is one of his final big seasons or another peak is one of the storylines to watch.

Valentino Guseli (Australia) came back from a knee injury that sidelined him in 2024-25 to claim two wins in 2025-26 (Calgary, plus a return to form at his familiar venue). At 20, he's the long-term face of Australian halfpipe alongside James.

On the women's side, the landscape is shifting fast:

Gaon Choi (South Korea) won the 2025-26 women's Crystal Globe at age 17 — the youngest women's halfpipe Crystal Globe winner since Chloe Kim in 2016-17. The first Korean of any gender to win a Snowboard Park & Pipe Crystal Globe. Wins at Secret Garden, Copper, and other stops in her short career. The next Chloe Kim is here.

Mitsuki Ono (Japan) has seven career World Cup wins and has been on the podium consistently for years. Won at Aspen in 2025-26.

Cai Xuetong (China) is a seven-time Crystal Globe winner — more than any other rider, male or female. One World Cup win away from tying the all-time record of 15. Cai has never missed a podium at Secret Garden (5-for-5 starts there).

Sara Shimizu (Japan) took silver at the 2025 World Championships and won the 2025-26 Copper World Cup.

Elizabeth Hosking (Canada) won her first-ever World Cup in Calgary 2026 — at home, the first Canadian woman to win at home in years. She'll have another shot at Calgary 2027.

Isabelle Loetscher (Switzerland) broke a 14-event streak of European-rider absence from women's halfpipe podiums when she finished third in Calgary 2026. The first European woman in years to make a halfpipe podium. She'll get home crowds at Laax and Silvaplana — both Swiss stops.

Storylines we'll be watching

A few things make the 2026-27 season different from a normal World Cup year:

It's a Worlds year. Every rider's calendar peaks at Montafon in March 2027, not at the World Cup Crystal Globe race. Some athletes will skip events to peak for Worlds. Crystal Globe standings will reflect this — riders chasing the Globe vs. riders peaking for Worlds may have different schedules.

Post-Olympic season dynamics. Milano Cortina 2026 just wrapped. Olympic medalists tend to take partial seasons off in post-Olympic years. Some big names may not start every event.

Generational transition is visible. Gaon Choi at 17 on the women's side. Alessandro Barbieri at 18 on the U.S. men's side. The veteran tier (Chloe Kim, Scotty James, Cai Xuetong) is still elite but the next generation is arriving in real time.

Five different men's winners in 2025-26 was unusual. The last time more than five different men won halfpipe World Cup events in a single season was 2009-10. If 2026-27 produces similar parity, it's a sign the field is the deepest it's been in over a decade.

The first drop-in is December 9 at Secret Garden, China. If you can make it to any of the six venues this winter, you'll see live what television can't capture. If you can't — bookmark this article and track the names as the season unfolds.

Full athlete profiles for the U.S. roster are linked above. If we missed a rider you think we should be tracking, the email is open.