2. The Greatest Sporting Fail/Sacrifice of All Time in the Universe Ever – Shaun White the Messiah

Shaun White made the most powerful and inclusive statement possible by falling twice on his first rail in the US Open Slopestyle. Kooks, middle aged men and ginger people everywhere (those three subsets of humanity are not mutually exclusive, I know) will benefit from his unparalleled altruism and Jesus-like sacrifice. By eating shit, twice, within 20 yards of the start gate, in front of a hundred million people on the internet he made it acceptable to be a total dicknose in the park.

“This act of unparalleled sacrifice finally proves that he is in fact a deity.”

This is probably a bigger deal for humanity than Bill Gates giving billions of pounds to wipe out Malaria, North Korea opening up a chain of McDonalds or Jamie Oliver getting a hair-weave. What a hero… he has died on the cross of the flat bar, so we can all be saved next time we catch an edge on a box and fall on top of the 4 year old kid doing a tail press in front of us. This act of unparalleled sacrifice finally proves that he is in fact a deity. He was of course then resurrected somewhere about 25 feet above the coping of a super-pipe, with lots of people staring up at his balls in his tight pants and saying “oooh” from below.

4. Creative Courses

I am going to write a very nicely worded thank-you letter on headed notepaper, to Jake the Carpenter and his lovely wife, for getting creative with the set-up in Vail.  You have made the internet better, fixed snowboarding, and enabled me to delay my hernia operation by at least 3 years.

Whilst the tide was already turning – and even courses created by someone with a 16-bit programmable computer in South Korea, where they don’t even have snow and still think it’s dorky to snowboard in dungarees (like….duh!) have snuggled into bed with the shaved bits of the tranny revolution – the Original and Best (TM) Snowboard Contest (TM) in the World Ever (TM) gave birth to a beautiful PeacePark / PyeongChang love child that not only let the jocks flex their muscles, but also gave those with a more creative eye the chance to afterbang.

“You have made the internet better, fixed snowboarding, and enabled me to delay my hernia operation by at least 3 years.”

It is thus with humongous relish that I look forward to the next few years of watching slopestyle comps, but more importantly riding the terrain parks of the western world, as shapers (inspired, by their streaming live feeds) realise that riding transitions and cool little lumps and bumps is WAY more fun than hitting 80ft booters.

I do however think it will make the judges’ job a total nightmare – a crippler with a nose grab off a tranny is undboubtedly more stylish than a common-or-garden backside 7 off a straight kicker – but does it merit a bigger score, is it more difficult?  Only time will tell, and those guys sitting inside the judging booth will almost certainly get a shitload of 140 character grief over the next couple of years as they work it out.

5. Sponsored by Dubai

So, this – above all else is the most seminal moment of 2016. A snowboarder being sponsored by Dubai.

Yes, that’s right. The oil-drenched, gold-tapped cesspit of consumerism where the only way to define yourself is through your wealth, where the suppleness of the leather on your handbag is more important than your child’s emotional wellbeing and where people who stick plastic things into their body in the vain hope that it will make them more attractive to people with rat poison injected into their forehead go to fuck each other on sunbeds, where you get your hands chopped off if you disagree with the government and where if you are a woman it is really just better if you stay inside… yes, this place. This place is sponsoring snowboarders.

“When I saw Niklas Mattsson with the Dubai logo on his helmet, I literally spat out my tea and dropped my clotted cream scone onto the floor.”

It was bad enough that those oh-so-core skateboarders sold out in We Are Blood, when in return for the chance of nose-blunting some marble ledges they unwittingly endorsed one of the most grotesquely capitalist places on the planet.  But when I saw Niklas Mattsson with the Dubai logo on his helmet, I literally spat out my tea and dropped my clotted cream scone onto the floor.

Shaun White (AKA Aslan the lion) was sponsored by Target (who sell a wide variety of homewares and reasonably priced clothing) and thus got endless shit from snowboarding’s thugged out twitter feed.  But Matsson just took selling out to the next level.  Mate – what are you doing?  Have a word with yourself. What next? Will we see guys rocking President Assad decals on their boards?

Anyway… as I say, in 50 years’ time, when the whole world has gone to shit in a sandwich box and we look back at 2016 from from the windows of our atomic-bomb shelters whilst eating rehydrated packets of pork scratchings, we will remember it thus.  British people, talking about little rubber people sponsored by oil barons, hitting trannies, and the lord Jesus White sacrificing himself so we can all be saved.

Amen.