Snowboarding
These are the riders who've shaped snowboarding as we know it and continue to inspire the sport.
OK, we admit it: the headline is a bit clickbaity. And, yes, snowboarding is way too complex and diverse to say any five snowboarders were 'the most' influential. So, let's put it like this: at different times, in different ways, these guys were as influential as anyone in shaping the direction of snowboarding as a sport and subculture, and they truly are five of its greatest icons.
01
Terje Håkonsen
Arguably the greatest snowboarder in the history of the sport, the legacy of this Norwegian goes beyond his incredible athletic prowess. As a rider, he pushed progression during the sport's fastest-evolving period. As a competitor, he dominated freestyle contests throughout the '90s. As a video star, he was a major player in taking technical freestyle moves to natural backcountry terrain. And, by boycotting the biggest sporting event in the world and with his continued anti-FIS stance, he is one the sport’s great campaigners and idealists.
02
Travis Rice
Hailed by critics as the best all-round snowboarder in the world today, Travis Rice, is snowboarding's ligit movie star. His ground-breaking and films like That’s It, That’s All, The Art of Flight and The Fourth Phase have transcended the sport and inspired countless people to strap on a board.
A true backcountry master, he founded the Red Bull Supernatural contest in 2012 to push competitive freeriding in natural terrain, spent years traversing the world to film his 4K masterpiece The Fourth Phase and proved he's still got it on the contest scene when he won the cutting-edge of progression Natural Selection Tour in 2023. One of the best to ever do it and one the best still doing it.
03
Jamie Lynn
One of the things that makes snowboarding so damn appealing is its fundamental need to be aesthetically pleasing. In other words: style is everything. The wonderful thing about style is how difficult it is to quantify (hence the problems snowboard judges face in rewarding it), but when someone has it... well, it's obvious to anyone watching.
So, back when snowboarders were mostly struggling to combine progressive tricks with clean style, Jamie Lynn arrived on the scene with his good looks, cool, arty vibe, no gloves and a butter-smooth skate style – and set a template that we've stuck to ever since.
04
Tom Sims
The Jake Burton versus Tom Sims rivalry is a tale woven deep into the fabric of snowboarding's folklore. Both of these pioneers have a solid claim to being on this list: between them they pretty much took a niche hobby called snurfing and turned it into a mainstream sport. But, of the two, we have to look at the West Coast surfer-skater's role in pushing the sport towards freestyle – Sims organised the first-ever halfpipe contest in 1983 – as the bigger of the two back when snowboarding was in its infancy.
05
Craig Kelly
Alongside Terje Håkonsen, Craig Kelly is widely regarded as the greatest snowboarder of all time. As snowboarding first emerged as a popular sport, Kelly emerged as its first superstar, winning multiple world championships in multiple disciplines and scoring countless cover shots. Then, after years of dominating the contest scene, Kelly walked away from lucrative sponsorship deals to dedicate himself exclusively to backcountry freeriding, creating a new pro career option in the process.
For some, Kelly’s video parts are his greatest contribution to the sport – his silky-smooth mastery of big mountains looks as good today as ever – but for others, it is simply that his was a life lived for a love of mountains that represents his true legacy.
06
Scott Stevens
Above all else, snowboarding thrives on two things: fun, and progression. Without fun, the only reasons left for doing it wouldn't be good reasons. And without progression, there's only stagnation, boredom and, eventually, the death of fun. More than any other rider in the past decade, Scott Stevens and his totally unique brand of ultra-creative, ultra-silly snowboarding has shown us that with the right mindset, anybody can be progressive and any snowy terrain whatsoever can be fun. Which all goes to make him the most influential snowboarder in the world today… probably.
07
Anna Gasser
You can't have a list of influential snowbaorders without including the women who's got more medals and world firsts than we can remember – Austrian queen Anna Gasser.
You name it, Gasser's done it: world's first female Cab Double Cork 900 just three years after first snowboarding, first women to land a Cab Triple Underflip, gold medals from every major slopestyle and Big Air contest out there, including the Winter Games twice. There's not a more decorated female out there today and Gasser has pushed women's contest snowboarding to incredible new heights.
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