Katrina Leibee
Audio By Carbonatix
On a 65 degree Monday in February, kids beginning their ski and snowboard journey joined Olympic athletes who’d just stepped off the plane from Italy to practice tricks at Ruby Hill Rail Yard. Snowboarders Chase Blackwell, Jake Pates and Alessandro Barbieri made a pit stop in Denver before heading to Aspen for this weekend’s Snow League, a halfpipe competition started by Shaun White that puts top snowboarders head-to-head in a bracket-style competition, ultimately crowning one athlete the Snow League World Champion.
But these snowboarders aren’t tired yet. They’re ready to continue representing Colorado, the state that sent the most athletes to Italy for the 2026 Winter Games.
Blackwell lives in Longmont, and grew up riding the Superpipe at Copper Mountain. “Eldora was kind of like the first place that I really started riding and then from there just rode a lot at Breckenridge and Copper,” Blackwell says. “Really, in Colorado, there’s only two superpipes: Copper and Aspen. You gotta choose one of those to go ride and train. For me, it’s always been Copper.”
Katrina Leibee
For Blackwell, it was special that Colorado was one of the main states representing the U.S. “The Olympics was really like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. Just knowing that everyone back home has your back one 100 percent no matter what happens felt amazing,” he says. “Honestly, like it brought a little bit more emotion to the contest.”
Pates, who is currently a resident of Eagle, takes a lot of pride in representing the Centennial State and America, “the best country in the world,” he says.
“It’s a beautiful thing to be a part of an event that brings so many people together from all over the world and to wear the stars and stripes to represent America,” he adds.
More Competitions Ahead for Colorado’s Olympians
Pates, Blackwell and Barbieri will continue representing America in Aspen for the third event of the Snow League’s inaugural season. The season began in March 2025 with its first event in Aspen, then went to China at the end of 2025 for the second event. Now, it’s back in Aspen for the third event on February 27-28, and the fourth and final event of the season will be in Laax, Switzerland. The competition features 36 athletes competing in both snowboarding and free skiing, and “the athletes with the most points accumulated across the entire season will be crowned the Snow League World Champion,” according to the Snow League website.
Katrina Leibee
“Heading into the Snow League, I’m feeling really good,” says Blackwell, who is currently ranked sixth in the men’s snowboard competition for the Snow League. “I made some good strides in my snowboarding over the last couple of weeks while I was in Europe. We did a little pre-Olympic camp over in Switzerland. My snowboarding is the best it’s felt in a while.”
Barbieri is ranked fifth in the competition; he says the Snow League is one of his favorite events because of its unique challenge known as “dual dropping, because athletes must drop down the halfpipe on both walls, rather than sticking to one. The Snow League is more of a knockout style event where athletes go head-to-head, versus the Olympics where athletes go down a single run and the best score wins. “You have to duel it out with your competitors, that’s another super fun thing,” Barbieri explains.
Life — and Dating — After the Olympics
After finishing eighth in the men’s halfpipe at the Milan Cortina games, Pates is heading to Aspen as an alternate for the Snow League. But he’s got something else on his mind post-Olympics. “I’m looking forward to kind of taking some time after the crazy season. The last bunch of years has been wild for me so, yeah, I’m gonna jump on Bumble — that’s where the ladies can find me,” he says. “You never know. We’ll see what happens.”
Based on the crowd at Ruby Hill, he may not even need the app. Girls swarmed the athlete when he arrived, hoping to snap a selfie with the Olympian. He says he’s not quite sure what the dating scene looks like in Colorado yet, but “I will say there’s some really beautiful girls from Colorado,” he adds.
Katrina Leibee
Tickets are still available if you want to head to Aspen to watch The Snow League, and the events will also be streaming on NBC and Peacock.
