From the 4th to the 8th of February 2009, the ski resort of Crans-Montana will welcome the world's hottest snowboarders and freeskiers. For the very first time spectators can experience both sports back to back, thanks to a new innovative 5 days schedule. On the program for 2009 we have the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour with a 5 star slopestyle and the highest level of freeskiing on the planet.

The Crans-Montana CHAMPS Open by Rip Curl is famous for it's mythic slopestyle; a unique course over 650m long incorporating as many different types of jumps as possible. The course begins with a 25m Straight Jump followed by the Swatch Spine which leads to the Superpipe with Transfer Entry Jumps and finally ending up with a 6m high Quarter Pipe at the bottom. This type of multi functional course is highly demanding and the athlete must be an all terrain machine and in excellent physical condition just to make the finals. Even if slopestyle courses are ever evolving it is still very rare to integrate a Superpipe, which is normally a discipline of its own. This course at Crans-Montana therefore represents a veritable challenge for the athletes where only the true multi talented freestylers have a chance to win. In constant evolution since more than 5 seasons under the banner of the CHAMPS Open, the competition has evolved into an already mythic event for the snowboarders and today is a landmark for the freeskiers where this unique style of event is almost unheard of.

Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour 5 Star Event
The competitions kick off with the Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour 5 Star slopestyle from Wednesday 4th of February. Entries are limited to a maximum of 100 places but open to all. The above-mentioned places are reserved for seasoned professionals as well as amateurs and young hopefuls with an already proficient level of riding who dream of winning themselves a place in the semi-finals and finals. Lucky qualified riders will then be able to measure themselves up against some of the best the riders of planet, notably the 12 invitees who slot straight into the semi-finals on Saturday the 7th of February. The snowboard part of the CHAMPS Open attracts some of the best athletes in the world due to an attractive 50'000 U$ prize money and of course the TTR world ranking points attribution which culminates in a 200'000 U$ prize purse for the top Swatch TTR World Snowboard Tour ranked athletes.

Freeski Pro-Am
Since 3 years, the freeski has complemented the show and competitions of the CHAMPS Open by exposing two individual facets of freestyle snow sports at the time during the same event. The freeski part is still organized on an independent level because at this time there is no existing organization like with the TTR and snowboarding. High-level competitions in Europe are still very rare and the CHAMPS Open represents a landmark meeting, which is unprecedented for the freeskiers on a worldwide level. The freeski competition model is based on the same as structure as the snowboard part with the qualifications being open to all (max 80 freeskiers) and of course 12 invited riders going straight into the semi-finals. The qualifications begin on Friday the 6th of February and the semi-finals and finals on Sunday the 8th of February. A prize money of 20'000 U$ will be up for grabs so full action is guaranteed.