Whitelines Snowboarding

Jack O’Neill the eye-patch toting surfer-come-pirate was the inventor of the wetsuit for our water carving brethren midway through the last decade. Whilst he’d been keeping surfers toasty warm for 40 odd years, it was a while before he and the company turned their attention to the mountains and us snow surfers.

Based out of the Netherlands, they’ve got a pretty heavy rider list to compliment their North American contingent. Standout riders have to be Seb Toots, Maxence Parrot and Jeremy Jones.

As a double-pronged attack, they also ran one of the biggest competitions of the season until we recently got the news that they’ve scrapped it. The O’Neill Evolution in Davos, Switzerland had always been a highlight on the WST with a BA and HP event for some early season points.

O’Neill are also known for scouting out the kids with the talent early on in their shred careers. Watching Mark McMorris and Seb Toots battle it out for the medals is a common sight at most WST stops, but little do most people know that the two used to be teammates on O’Neill before Mark got poached by the big B.

Back on these shores, and O’Neill ran a rail contest in East London a few years back – the Shoreditch Showdown. Piling in a tonne of snow in the autumnal months and stoking out a whole heap of observers amongst the graffitied redbrick walls; with homegrown talent including the then newly-signed Andy Nudds.