How exclusive is the club? Well, until Tuesday, it had just one member—Austria’s Anna Gasser. However, now Japan’s Reira Iwabuchi and Canada’s Laurie Blouin have joined Gasser as the only female snowboarders to have landed the elusive triple cork (three off-axis flips)—and 20-year-old Iwabuchi claimed a world-first.
On Tuesday at The Nines ski and snowboard progression session in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Iwabuchi landed the first ever frontside triple 1260 (three and a half rotations) in women’s snowboarding, while 25-year-old Blouin joined Gasser as the only women to have landed a cab (switch frontside) triple 1260.
Gasser first landed the triple (a cab 1260 triple underflip) in training at Stubai Glacier, Austria, in November 2018. To date, however, no one has done it in competition.
All eyes were on Gasser at the Beijing Olympics earlier this year, with the thought being that she would attempt the trick in the big air final. She didn’t—and she didn’t have to in order to defend her big air gold medal from Pyeongchang 2018.
Gasser—who at 30 was the oldest woman in the Olympics big air final by five years—took gold with her cab double 1260 on her final jump.
Iwabuchi, however, did attempt a frontside triple 1260 on her final jump and came oh so close to landing it before spinning out on the landing and finishing in fourth place. She opted for progression over making the podium...and now, she has claimed a world first.
The 20-year-old Japanese rider finished fifth in slopestyle at the Games.
“Ever since Anna did her cab triple I knew I had to do a triple,” Iwabuchi said. “After I came so close at the Olympics, I really wanted to try again at The Nines.”
Blouin fell just short of the Olympic podium in Beijing with a fourth-place finish in slopestyle. She finished eighth in big air.
Iwabuchi took silver in big air in her X Games debut in 2018 and took bronze in the same event in 2020. Blouin is the 2017 snowboard slopestyle world champion and took silver in slopestyle at the the Pyeongchang 2018 Games.
The Nines started out in 2008 as a men’s private session called Nine Knights hosted by freeskier Nico Zacek in Oberstdorf, Germany. In 2011, a women’s event called Nine Queens debuted in Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis, Austria, and in 2014 the events merged.
The progression session is lauded for having some of snowsports’ most innovative terrain park designs.
This year, the course, which was built to prioritize flow and function, features lots of rounded shapes, bowls and natural lines. It was also built with the goal of avoiding artificial snow—a far cry from the conditions riders experienced at the Beijing Games, which were the first Winter Olympics in history to feature 100 percent man-made snow.
The question now is not if, but when these women will debut their triples in competition.
The 2021-22 snowboard World cup season ended on March 27, but next season will be here before we know it. And it’s safe to say that progression is going to be off the rails at training camp this fall.
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.