Refreshing.
That was the word multiple snowboarders used to describe the course and the format of the Rockstar Energy Open of Snow, which wrapped up its inaugural event in Breckenridge, Colorado on Sunday.
After holding two skateboarding iterations of the Rockstar Energy Open (RSEO) in Portland, Oregon, in the summers of 2024 and 2025, Rockstar debuted the first snow event this weekend.
The RSEO of Snow is not a direct replacement for the Dew Tour, which was long held in Breckenridge and then at Copper Mountain but which has been on hiatus since 2023. In fact, the RSEO is not analogous to any current slopestyle, big air, streetstyle or halfpipe event.
In Breckenridge, the men’s and women’s fields competed in Parkstyle, a hybrid discipline that features jumps and rails but is not quite street, not quite slopestyle. The competition brought together riders of all backgrounds, from street filmers who have never entered a contest to Olympic gold medalists.
The course, designed by Charles Beckinsale/Stomping Grounds Project, Breck Terrain Park Crew and SnowPark Technologies (SPT), features a multi-terrain setup including a combination of rail gardens and traditional jumps, hips, quarter pipes and a two-part jump.
Rockstar sought feedback on the course design from its team of athletes. The riders were thrilled with what Beckinsale and his team came up with, said Rockstar director of sports marketing Steve Mateus.
Team rider Ylfa Runarsdottir has amassed standout parts in films, but until the Rockstar Energy Open, she had never competed in a contest.
“This is my first time doing something like this,” Runarsdottir said. “It’s a little bit different; the setup is more of a flowy, fun thing; the hip is really big, but the jumps are not as big as in a normal slopestyle course for example. It’s just a little more playful. That’s more attractive to me and my approach to snowboarding than a full slopestyle course.”
Other athletes have 10 or 20 years of experience competing in contests, and still, none of them had seen anything quite like this build.
“We’ve been needing something different than your classic slopestyle [contest] for a really long time,” said Rockstar athlete and two-time Olympian Red Gerard.
Gerard was among a handful of athletes who received direct invites to the inaugural RSEO of Snow. He was joined by big names like Olympians Mark McMorris, Mons Roisland, Jamie Anderson and Dusty Henricksen.
True to the “open” aspect of the Rockstar Energy Open, the field of 60-plus snowboarders was filled out by riders who earned their spot via the Video Qualifier Series (VQS), including 10 men and seven women. But just because they weren’t directly invited doesn’t mean the VQS riders were amateurs and weekend warriors; to the contrary, this group included sponsored pros and Olympic contenders.
Some of the VQS riders advanced through the semifinal, in which men and women competed in one heat each with three total runs, and all the way into the final, where riders were grouped into head-to-head matchups, with the winner advancing.
In the men’s Parkstyle final on Sunday, two VQS qualifiers, Norway’s Øyvind Kirkhus and the USA’s Brooklyn DePriest, joined a field that included Olympians Henricksen and McMorris.
In the final head-to-head matchup, Kirkhus pushed Henricksen, who ultimately took the win, to the very last trick. Canada’s Eli Bouchard rounded out the podium in third.
A Burton team rider, Kirkhus is ranked first for Norway and ninth globally in men’s slopestyle, and you’ll likely be seeing him compete at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics. An unknown, he is not. Still, Kirkhus was grateful for the opportunity to earn a spot in the limited field at RSEO.
“Nothing is for granted in this industry and this contest is a great way to introduce new snowboarders to the world,” Kirkhus said after his second-place finish. Though he competes in rail jams and slopestyle events, he said this one stood out.
“The features, the flow, the people…everyone was bringing out the good vibes and expressing themselves how they want on the course,” Kirkhus said.
Henricksen surprised even himself with the win, though he is no stranger to the podium.
The 22-year-old has been a mainstay on the slopestyle circuit since his first career podium at the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix in Mammoth, California, in 2019. In 2022–23, Henricksen took the overall FIS Snowboard Slopestyle Crystal Globe and qualified for the U.S. Olympic Snowboard Team at the Beijing 2022 Games.
But Henricksen won’t sacrifice style just to win a contest, and he has been disillusioned by the increasing “spin-to-win” mentality in snowboarding, finding filming in the backcountry to be creatively fulfilling. So perhaps it’s no surprise he took the win in a contest that was built to showcase style, technicality and creativity on a course where no one spun anything higher than a 1080 (three 360-degree rotations).
To the average viewer, the hips and quarter pipes looked enormous. But they weren’t built for the degrees of rotation that a typical big air event features—where riders like Hiroto Ogiwara have upped the ante all the way to 2340s.
The women’s final came down to 20-year-old Finnish up-and-comer Telma Särkipaju and slopestyle legend Jamie Anderson. Särkipaju just edged past the veteran, with a best run that consisted of a Cab lipslide 270, Cab 540, frontside 360, melon air over the hip, frontside 360 frontside grab and Cab 270 to fakie on the down bar.
Sixteen-year-old Jessica Perlmutter, who also won the women’s rail jam on Friday, took third place in the Parkstyle final.
Now a mother of two at 35, Anderson is returning to competition after a two-year hiatus. Before the slopestyle Olympic qualifying gauntlet begins in January, Anderson was eager for the chance to ease back into competing at what she described as a “fun and refreshing” event.
“I learned double cork 10s [1080s], and I think that’s personally where I want to go with my riding,