Newsweek recently released an exhaustive ranking of the best countries in the world, based on key factors such as education, health, quality of life, economic dynamism, and political environment. They even made a fancy interactive flash infographic thing so you could see how authoritative it was, and have no grounds to argue. But perhaps the most newsworthy part of this feature was that the good ol’ USA ranked a sorry number 11, thanks in large part to our pathetic health and education systems. We felt as good Americans it was our patriotic duty to bring some esteem back to the good old US of A. To do this, we’re presenting a similar, but far less researched and authoritative feature on snowboarding’s best countries, where clearly, we rule.
The following totally arbitrary rankings are loosely based on the number of relevant ski resorts, the number (and quality of) of pros it has produced, how good the snow fall/terrain is, and a small focus on the amount of Olympic ass kicking the country has done in snowboarding. However, most statistics we’re completely pulled out of our asses  … Details & Videos
Only 32 qualifiers this time instead of 64 in the mens 4x (only 50 were entered). Graves came out on top. DH rider Fabien Cousinie in 5th and that man Gracia again after his 10th in DH qualifying earlier in the day gets another 10th in 4x. Scott Beaumont had a bad day at the office and got in by the skin of his teeth in 32nd.
The Beerten and Molcik battle continues …Â Details