Japan dominate Steamboat World Cup as Ogiwara tops men’s Big Air and Onitsuka clinches Crystal Globe
Dec 13, 2025·Snowboard Park & Pipe)
Japanese riders dominated the last Big Air World Cup of the season in Steamboat (USA), with Miyabi Onitsuka winning the women’s Crystal Globe as Hiroto Ogiwara topped the men’s field.
Onitsuka was the first snowboarder to secure victory in Steamboat on Saturday as the 27-year-old topped the women’s field to claim her first World Cup victory since 2019.
Onitsuka also walked away with the discipline’s Globe after ending the 2025/26 season with 205 points thanks to her Steamboat victory and her third-place finish at the season opener in Secret Garden in November.
Wearing the Cup leader’s yellow bib, 27-year-old Onitsuka began Saturday’s final with a backside double cork 1080 mute in her first run, for which she scored 83.00.
Teenagers Ally Hickman of Australia and Seungeun Yu of South Korea temporarily leapfrogged Onitsuka in the third run, before the Japanese rider dropped in with the final turn of the women’s competition and put down a switch frontside 1260 mute that netted her 91.00 points, pushing her score total to 174.00 and to the top of the leaderboard.
Hickman was relegated to third place on 162.25 behind runner-up Yu’s (KOR) 173.25. For both Hickman and Yu, Saturday’s results were the best of their careers, with Hickman netting her first World Cup podium in her eighth competition, and Yu doing so in just her fifth.
Onitsuka’s victory on Saturday — her first in six years — comes a week after she finished fifth in Beijing following a heavy crash.
“I can’t believe it. I spent a lot of time on the cab 12, so I’m happy,” said Onitsuka.
Meanwhile, U.S. snowboarding icon and two-time Olympic Slopestyle gold medalist Jamie Anderson finished sixth on Saturday as the 35-year-old made her World Cup comeback after retiring from competition in 2022.
In the men’s field, Japan almost delivered a podium sweep as Hiroto Ogiwara (JPN) topped the final ahead of teammate Kira Kimura before Oliver Martin (USA) claimed the last podium spot ahead of fourth-placed Ryoma Kimata (JPN).
Ogiwara secured victory thanks to his never-been-done-in-competition backside 1980 tailgrab in the third run for which the judges awarded him 94.75 – the highest-scored run of the final – to give the 20-year-old a winning total of 180.25.
The win is Ogiwara’s first World Cup victory since Beijing in 2024 and comes after the rider made headlines in early 2025 after winning X Games gold with the first 2340 landed in competition.
“I’m so happy to (have) won this. First time of the season. So happy, super happy,” he said.
Hiroto’s happiness was heartbreak for his team-mate Kimura, who needed a victory on Saturday to surpass China’s Su Yiming on the Big Air Crystal Globe rankings. Instead, Kimura would fall just a single point short of that goal, with a two-run total of 179.25.
Martin’s performance on Saturday was highlighted by another never-been-done-in-competition trick, as the U.S. standout landed a frontstide triple cork 1620 mute pullback in his second run, helping him to a podium spot in his first World Cup start of the 2025/26 season. The 17-year-old wrapped up his 2024/25 season with two bronze medals in Big Air and Slopestyle at the Engadin 2025 FIS Snowboard World Championships, after earning his first career World Cup podium earlier in the season in Calgary.
Despite finishing outside of the top five on Saturday with seventh place, 16-year-old Yuto Kimura (JPN) - competing in just the second World Cup of his career - impressed judges and spectators alike with a frontside 1980 frontside grab in run two which earned him a score 93.25. The teenager was also the top qualifier coming into Saturday’s final.
With his two back-to-back victories in Secret Garden and Beijing and the one point difference between Ogiwara and Kira kimura, China’s Su Yiming added the 2025/26 Big Air Crystal Globe to his already impressive trophy case, despite not competing in Steamboat.
With Steamboat in the books, the final Olympic qualification opportunities for the big air and slopestyle riders come in the form of two January slopestyle World Cups in Aspen (USA) and Laax (SUI)
The Olympic Qualification Quota list will be published on 19 January 2026, the day after competition wraps at the Laax Open.
The Milano Cortina 2026 Big Air competition at Livigno Snow Park begins on 5 February.
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