Monday Mix - June 14, 2021

It was a fun week on the socials, with some exciting news, some outrageous antics, and a whole bunch of good shredding coming down the pipeline, meaning that we can just avoid boring you with too much of an extended into this week and get straight into the wildness.

And if you're looking for "wild" there's probably no better place to go than Nicolas Huber's IG page, as the Swiss ripper kicks off the Mix for the second week in a row by launching himself into a body of water. This time, however, he's ditched the astronaut look and rebranded himself as Mister Switzerland, with a fresh red and white suit and a Mission: Impossible-style leap out of an office building and into the Limmat River. Never stop being you, Nicky.

Oh and kids, per usual, please don't try this at home...

Not to be outdone in the "shredders getting wetter" department, the Italian SBX ladies Michela Moioli and Rafaella Brutto took pond skimming to a whole new level last week, bringing bikins, inflatable donuts, and a whole bunch of stoke to this chilly-looking puddle up high in Cervinia. There's gotta be a way to include this as a some kind of demonstration event next year in Beijing, no?

From river, to pond, to the ocean, although this one's a little more serious, as we're wondering if Judd Henkes just might be the best three-board rider in the world right now. The 20 year-old is already a leader on the stacked US slopestyle/big air squad, rips a skateboard like a young Heath Kirchart, and is out there on the waves shooting barrels into 2m airs on a surfboard. The man cannot be stopped...

We're not sure how good he is on a surfboard, but one rider that probably takes the title from Judd as the two-sport king is Ayumu Hirano. Ayumu already owns two halfpipe Olympic medals, and now he's just been confirmed to represent Team Japan on home soil at the Tokyo Games for Park Skateboarding after finishing as the top Japanese skater at the Des Moines Dew Tour stop Olympic qualifier...

Looking for a soundtrack to all that summer fun? Well Pat Burgener has got you covered. He may be Swiss, but he's harnessed some Cali vibes in a big way on his latest track, "Out Of Hand"...

And now we'll get to a little snowboarding, as there were a tonne of good clips from all over the place in the past week. First up, however, we'll look back to the Aspen 2021 World Champs...

Over the weekend we ran a couple of polls asking you to vote on your favourite women's and men's off-the-podium slopestyle runs from back in Aspen, and the results are in, with Japan's Kokomo Murase getting the nod for the women, and Max Parrot of Canada edging out Red Gerard (USA) to take the win for the men. We've got Kokomo's video up now, and you can expect to see Max's full run on Wednesday.

We mentioned Red earlier, and he's been busy ripping at Copper with the Burton crew, stacking more clips in a casual afternoon than most of us could hope to put in the bank all season. There just aren't many things in the world more we'd rather watch than Red Gerard riding loose in a fun park on a sunny spring day...

Same vibe, different continent, as Germany's Leon Guetela had some fun getting down at Clemens Millauer's SELFMADE park in Turracher Hoehe...

Speaking of Leons, Guetela's buddy and teammate Leon Vockensperger posted this beauty of a throwback clip to a sketchy sunset jump line in Sweden from the end of last season. And when we say "sketchy" we're talking about those kickers, not the riding. The backies are all very much on point...

Here's Canada's Brooke D'Hondt with a couple boosty pipe hits from this past season. Front 9 + back 9 =

Of course, if we're talking women's pipe, we're talking Chloe Kim, and the Aspen 2021 World Champion was named Snowboard Athlete of the Year by the US squad after winning every event she entered in 2020/21 - the World Champs, the X Games, the Laax Open and the Aspen US Grand Prix. Chloe Kim is simply undeniable...

Another award to mention, as Evy Poppe was recognized with runner-up honours in the category of Best European Young Athlete at the Piotr Nurowski Prize ceremony on Friday. Winner of Krasnoyarsk 2021 Junior World Championships gold in the slopestyle and bronze in the big air - as well as taking a European Cup victory in January in Crans Montana, Evy is looking destined to become a World Cup regular in the very near future...

Let's mix things up a little bit and take it inside for a minute, beginning with Ikkou Anai and some chill jib lines in a big fridge in Japan...

And how about Jamie Nicholls, having some fun at the Snow Centre just outside of London as things open back up a little bit in the UK...

While Jamie and Ikkou are escaping the summer heat at the indoors in the Northern Hemisphere, down south winter is finally settled in for most mountain regions, including in Argentina where Pedro Bidegan and friends continue the age-old tradition of scraping together their own minipark at the bottom of the resort as soon as the first decent dump hits...

Hammer of the week? Mortiz Boll looking to become the latest - and, we think, tallest - rider to add a quad to the repertoire. A little backseat in the landing but otherwise this is looking sick...

At the other end of the shred spectrum we've got Benny Karl, keeping both feet firmly on the ground as he hits the slopes for the first time in two months to lay down some of the nices soul carves you're likely to lay eyes on this week..

We'll wrap things up for today with some pure positivity, as Vancouver 2010 halfpipe gold medallist and proud mama Torah Bright has gotten her 11 month-old started in the family tradition early, taking young Flow Skywalker out for the first rip of his life over the weekend. By our math, this means we're about 14 years away from once again having a Bright tearing it and pushing boundaries on the snowboard world stage...

As always, thanks for following along. Have a good 'un and we'll see ya here next week!