King of Style

Words: Greta Sjobom
Photos: Jonas Linder & Johan Lygrell

This year's Stadium Winter Jam in Stockholm, Sweden can be summarized as a very successful five-year anniversary. A new attendance record was set when more than 26,500 people showed up to take in the festivities. The starting field of riders had the heaviest names so far and exhibitors at the Winter Fair doubled from last year. Snowboarders took new and important points in the World Cup and the King of Style was crowned. Nothing was as expected, and everything was bigger and better than before.

The temperature varied from 0 degrees to -3 throughout the day, and the light rain and sleet created conditions that made the athletes that much more exhilarating on the ramp.

After the snowboarding portion of the event where Canadian Sebastian Toutant prevailed with Finland’s Petja Piirroinen in second and Switzerland’s Patrick Burg in third, it was time for the Peak Performance King of Style. Of the 24 qualifying skiers, only eight went on to the finale. In a fierce competition on Friday night, Elias Ambühl took first place in the qualifiers, followed closely by PK Hunder and Aleksander Aurdal.

Elias Ambühl

On Saturday the qualifiers met established skiers who were already pre-qualified to finals. The contest consisted of a dramatic one-hit head to head format where each rider was only permitted to do the same trick twice throughout the course of the night. Right from the get go, X Games and Euro X Games halfpipe gold medalist Kevin Rolland was on fire, beating Alexander Aurdal and Jon Olsson in the opening rounds, and prevailing over last year's winner Andrew Håtveit. Håtveit, who missed his landing and ultimately ended up in fourth place.

Andreas Håtveit

In the finals the qualification winner and big air mastermind Elias Ambühl was waiting for Rolland. Elias threw down an impressive and huge double cork 1260, but couldn’t stomp the landing, leaving an empty net for Kevin Rolland, who cruised to victory with a flatspin 360.

Elias Ambühl

Kevin Rolland

Thus Kevin Rolland became the 2010 King of Style, with Ambühl in second and Germany’s Bene Mayr in third.

Elias Ambühl (2nd), Kevin Rolland (1st), Bene Mayr (3rd)

Kevin Rolland, 2010 King of Style winner

Results

1) Kevin Rolland
2) Elias Ambühl
3) Bene Mayr
4) Andreas Håtveit
5) Jacob Wester
6) Jon Olsson
7) Simon Dumont
8) Bobby Brown
9) Sammy Carlsson
10) Paul Bergeron
11) PK Hunde
12) Aleksander Aurdal
13) Phil Casabon
14) Fridtjof Fredricsson
15) Oscar Scherlin
16) TJ Schiller
17) Russ Henshaw
18) Tom Wallisch
19) Gus Kenworthy
20) PC Fosse
21) Kim Boberg
22) Ole Christian Mustad
23) Axel Östlund
24) Niklas Eriksson
25) Jesper Tjäder
26) LJ Strenio
27) Linus Tornberg
28) JF Houle
29) Henrik Harlaut
30) Simon Ericson
31) Oscar Wester
32) Niklas Karlsson
33) Oscar Harlaut

Check out the highlight video below, and if you live in Sweden, you can watch the full stream of the event until December 20th by clicking here.

Peak Performance King Of Style finals 2010 at Stadium Winterjam from Visualante on Vimeo.