Maxwell Fox Rabdau of Monroe, recently won a bronze medal at the USASA National Snowboarding Championships at Copper Mountain Colorado. (
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Maxwell Fox Rabdau of Monroe, N.Y., recently won a bronze medal at the USASA National Snowboarding Championships at Copper Mountain Colorado. He competes in the Youth Men Slopestyle event, which consist of three jumps and two rails.
Slopestyle became an Olympic event at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. To qualify for Nationals, Rabdau had to compete in four regional USASA qualifying events in Southern Vermont. He finished the season ranked number one in the Southern Vermont region - winning two gold and two bronze medals.
USASA has 29 regions throughout the U.S. with the Southern Vermont region being considered one of the best in the nation. USASA invites the top two or three snowboarders from each region to the National Championships.
Going into the National Championships, Rabdau was ranked 12th overall. His only goal was to make into the finals, figuring, he said, that once in the finals, anything was possible.
After competing in the preliminary round against 60 other snowboarders, he finished with the third-highest score, securing his spot in the finals. During the finals, Rabdau was able to put down a solid score on his first run and remain in third place.
Rabdau began snowboarding at age 4 and started competing at age 6 at nearby Mountain Creek in Vernon, N.J. Over the years, he has progressed at a very fast rate and is now considered one of the top up and coming riders in the country at age 15.
During the winter season, he attends Okemo Mountain School full time in Ludlow, Vermont. The students there train six days a week for four hours a day in addition to their school work. In the off season, he trains by skateboarding, wakeboarding and jumping on a trampoline. He also spends a few hours a week snowboarding at Big Snow American Dream, an indoor ski resort in Rutherford, N.J.
Rabdau said he hopes to eventually compete at the X-Games and at the Olympics.