Yukon’s Stian Langbakk places first in the Snowboard Rails event at the Junior World Championship
In the international snowboarding world, Yukon athlete Stian Langbakk is on an upwards trajectory. As a kid, he started out skateboarding and transitioned to a snowboard when he got one for Christmas when he was eight years old. Now 16, the young athlete has been riding for half his life and competing for a good part of it. He started out in local competitions, steadily improving and advancing. Now he is ranked third in the world, for his age, in Rails, and fourth in his age in Slopestyle.
Langbakk’s favourite events are Slopestyle and Rail, and he also competes in Big Air. He’s excelled in all three in various competitions, sometimes podiuming in all three. But at the 2026 FIS Park & Pipe Junior World Championships in Calgary, in March, it’s on the rails that Langbakk really crushed it and returned a World Champion.
In Rails, competitors complete as many runs as they can in 25 minutes and are judged on their best four tricks. One set of judges score the athletes on how well they execute the tricks, while another group of judges score the variety of tricks performed and the different rails used. For the Junior Worlds, there were four rails to choose from.
Langbakk strategized with his coach before and during the Rails event, to decide which tricks he would do. He started with tricks that he felt confident about landing, which gave him some decent if not stellar scores. Then, for his last few runs, he upped the ante and tried some tricks he hadn’t done in practice runs.
This strategy paid off and placed him first, with one other competitor in the Tricks side of scoring. After waiting several minutes for the judges to announce the variety scores, Langbakk found himself on top, edging out the next competitor, Pyry Posio of Finland, by just one point.
Once he’s finished competing for the year, Langbakk won’t be resting on his laurels: he’ll dive right into training for next season. Part of this can be done at home, working out at the gym. But though Langbakk loves the Yukon and the coaching and support he receives here, he’s competing at a level where he needs to go outside to train and compete.
In 2026, his training schedule will take him around the world from Mammoth Mountain in California, to Australia and even to China. Some of his training is on snow; other times it’s on airbags. His goals for training vary from working on landing tricks, consistently, to learning new skills.
Ultimately, Langbakk has set his sights on the Canadian National Team and the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps, when he’ll be 20 years old. Beyond 2030, his dream is to go pro and participate in World Cup events. He says that few snowboarders stay on the professional circuit into their 30s, at which point they might transition into opportunities such as films.
Being a world-class athlete is not cheap. The cost of his training and travel in 2026 will be $80,000, so Langbakk is fundraising and looking for corporate supporters. He says that he’s grateful for his current sponsors, including Casino Projects and Arctic Backhoe. You can go to snowathletes.ca/athlete/stian-langbakk to support Langbakk in his snowboarding journey. You can also donate proceeds from your empties at Raven ReCentre under his name, Stian Langbakk.
People can also follow Langbakk’s progress on Instagram and YouTube (@stianstandssideways), and Substack (@stianlangbakk). There are links to competition and training videos, which provide great footage of a young athlete at the top of his game, getting some pretty impressive big air.
In the one video, Langbakk shows how learning new tricks is about perseverance and determination as he rides the same rail, repeatedly, crashing numerous times before he nails it.
“When you finally get the new trick,” he says, “it’s the best feeling in the world.”
