Ryo Aizawa

Dripping with natural style, Ryo Aizawa is a new school snowboarder with an old soul. The young rookie from Mie Prefecture, Japan, is just as comfortable hitting rails with the latest switch moves as he is carving, slashing, pole jamming, wall riding, and veering off course in the most raw and unpredictable ways. In his X Games debut at Aspen 2020, he wallied off advertising banners and nose buttered all the way down the knuckle. When it’s time to get ‘serious’ in competition, Ryo (pronounced “Yo”, by the way) can throw down as one of the select few riders who own a quad cork 1800. He even overcooked one into a flatspin 1980 (five-and-a-half-rotations!) at XG Aspen and miraculously rode away. Ryo placed second in Big Air and Slopestyle in the Japanese National Championships, but don’t judge him on contests: A real snowboarder’s snowboarder, watching Ryo tear up a course with that nonchalant shred style is an electrifying experience – and we can’t wait to see more.