Snowboarding

New Zealand's quality terrain parks, extensive freeriding terrain and accessible backcountry breed world-class Kiwi snowboarders. NZ athletes emerge from the NZ beginner slopes to go on to compete in high profile global events such as the Winter X-Games, Winter Dew Tour, Paralympics and the Olympics. Snow Sports NZ work on turning snowboard groms into world champions, here’s how…

Competitive snowboarding includes alpine racing, snowboard cross, halfpipe, slopestyle and freeride. New Zealand athletes were there when snowboarding became an official event at the Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan in 1998 and today we have some of the best park, pipe and freeride snowboarders in the world wearing the silver fern. 

Snowboarding evolved from sports like surfing and skateboarding in the sixties. The core style and culture of these expressive sports significantly influenced the development of snowboarding but also shaped the innovation and rekindling of freeskiing globally. Equipment, tricks and skill level have seen a steep learning curve and the boundaries of riding steep natural terrain and huge technical man-made features are pushed every season.

Snowboarders in NZ enjoy world-class park and pipe facilities and full support from Cardrona Alpine Resort. The resort gets behind youth competition by hosting the Cardrona NZ Freeski & Snowboard Junior Nationals each year and they support freeskiing and snowboarding as the naming sponsor of the New Zealand Park and Pipe team.

Rules / Criteria / Resources

Development

National Series

2026 Information Coming Soon!

High Performance Pathway

The purpose of Peak Respect Snow-Pact is to set the standards of behaviours required by all people involved in Snow Sports NZ sanctioned events to create a safe, fun and respectful competition environment. This will protect our people, our reputation and ensure that Snow Sports NZ complies with our legislative requirements around safeguarding and health and safety.  

Sport Integrity
​​​​​​​Commission

Snow Sports NZ is committed to clean, fair sport. We believe in protecting the health of our athletes, the integrity of our sport and the spirit of clean competition in which the best succeed. We work in collaboration with the Sport Integrity Commission Te Kahu Raunui (the Commission – formerly Drug Free Sport New Zealand)