We’re not entirely sure how we missed this one, but a week or so back, Mini announced the winners of their Creative Use of Space shaping award, and the winners are… Laax! For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, this is how the Mini award (and that’s Mini as in the car, not as in a small prize) worked. Each of the four resorts hosting Burton Global Open Series events were charged with incorporating a specially-designed feature into their slopestyle course. Riders rode this (as you do) and were rewarded for using it creatively. Then, once all the BGOS events were over, the park crew responsible for the best feature, were also given a hefty prize.

As Europeans (yes, Europeans, did you hear that Mr Cameron?) we’re proud to see that Laax’s Swiss shapers beat those from the US and Canada. And having spent more of the last week than we should riding the Laax slopestyle fetaure while out at the Brits, we have to say we agree with the judges decision – it’s sick. Just look at the number of different lines you can take through it!

Certainly we reckon it beats this pretty straight kicker effort by the yanks:

And this average-ish one by the Canadians:

It’ll be interesting to see whether the other stops on the BGOS tour step up their game in response to Laax’s unassailable levels of radness, cos there’s a fair bit of kudos attached to being able to lay claim to having the ‘most creative’ park in the world. It’ll also be interesting to see if this kind of contest shakes up traditional slopestyle shaping at all. Could we get to the stage where (as David Benedek put it when we talked to him for our latest issue) you could have “ten whoop-di-doos into a drop down or some crazy shit.” And if that happens, what would be the effect on riding? Could the current double cork bonanza be coming to an end?