The third Vans Hi Standard went down in Mayrhofen on March 21^st  2015, bringing together Vans team-shreds, locals and talented up-and-comers for a laid-back expression session on both kickers and rails. With no spins over 720 allowed, the riders were forced to focus on stylish spins and tweaked-out grabs over hucking.

There has been a huge amount of chat on the forums and opinion tanks of snowboarding’s internet recently about the overall direction of competitive snowboarding. With so much progression over the last few seasons, triple corks have become the go-to trick for many riders at the top of the ability spectrum, which has led to big-air contests becoming rather anaemic in the trick variety and style department – the very thing that were once their biggest selling point.

Vans set out to buck the trend with their Hi-Standard series, designed to bring the focus squarely back on style. This year, the contest has been rolled out around the globe, with stops in the US, Canada, China and Austria. We stopped by at the European leg in Mayrhofen to check out all of the action.

First up was the kicker session, and after a short warm-up, the judges whipped out their pens, paper and a thick wad of cash, and got the official jam session underway. The Vans Penken Park crew did a killer job of pulling together a decent sized jump, and with no spins over 720 allowed, riders were forced to mix up their riding with unique grabs, poked out spins and anything else that would convince the judges to reach for the purse strings.

Vans had invited the vast majority of their European team along to the session, with the likes of Kalle Ohlson, Tyler Chorlton, Valerian Ducourtil, Rowan Coultas, Lucas Baume, Cees Wille and many more all sending it on the kicker, alongside the other registered riders looking home to take some dollar.

The unique format really brought the contest alive, with no-grab spins, stock backside 180s, tailgrabs, crails, rodeos, methods and more all being thrown into the mix. With cash being dished out for individual tricks, riders made sure to be back at the top of the kicker ready to drop again as quickly as possible.

After the kicker session, the focus was shifted over to the infamous Vans Penken Park stairset, with its familiar set of yellow and blue rails offering a whole bunch of options. Once again, cash was dished out to any riders stomping bolts with good style, and Henry was amping the riders to get dangerous.

Rowan Coultas was tying a super innovative transfer line from wallride to down rail, Kevin Trammer was landing almost every trick conceivable, while Clemens Millauer was popping chunky frontflips off the end of the wallride. The girls were killing it too, and although we didn’t see her cab 270 (much to the disappointment of Henry), Anna Gasser brought her clean style and bulging bag of tricks to the rails, which ultimately saw her claim some extra prize money as best girl overall.

Anthony Indawood took home best slam with his 50-50 slip-out to full-taco and micro-shredder Niclas Bothe threw down some serious hammers to claim the best rookie prize. Clemens Millauer impressed the judges in both the kicker and rail sessions and walked away 300 euros richer (on top of all his trick-cash of course) as best overall.

The Mayrhofen leg of the Vans Hi Standard was the perfect example of the kind of contest-format switch up that is so needed in snowboarding right now. Anything that can be seen as a legit alternative to the hyper-hucking of present day big air contests has to be a good thing, so huge props to Vans for sticking true to the very essence of snowboarding with this one. We can’t wait for next year.