The Swatch TTR World Tour is set to detonate over the coming weeks with both the 6Star Nissan X-Trail Jam and 6 Star Roxy Chicken Jam firing up and getting the season underway in the Northern Hemisphere.

The Roxy Chicken Jam is taking place from December 12th to 13th, 2008 in Kaprun, Austria and as always, the world's top female riders will be hitting the park and pushing women's snowboarding to new heights.

Meanwhile, round the other side of the globe, some of the TTR's most progressive male riders will be gathering in Japan for the Nissan X-Trail Jam, an extreme battle of style and amplitude in the Colosseum that is the Tokyo Dome.

The women's Roxy Chicken Jam has got a reputation as being one of the female riders' favorite Swatch TTR event, delivering a park shaped with precision and guaranteed good times. A lot of the riders have been shredding the Southern hemisphere contests, they have been training hard since, putting in the hours, and are now super keen to get out there to step it up. This year, Europe's big guns like Sina Candrian (SUI), Conny Bleicher (GER), and Silvia Mittermüller (GER) will be flying the flag for Europe looking for those early season points, but it's definitely not going to be a walk in the park for them, with previous TTR Champions Torah Bright (AUS), Cheryl Maas (NED) and Jamie Anderson (USA) in the mix, riders who always bring their A-game and stomp the big runs.

The men's Nissan X-Trail Jam in Japan has a reputation as a totally crazy place, crazy fans, crazy jumps, and crazy riding, and if history is any indicator, we're assured of seeing a showdown of epic proportions when the Swatch TTR superstars go head to head on December 12th - 14th, 2008.

Current World No.1 Chas Guldemond will be out in force, especially after his banging Southern hemisphere season, and he's amping for the event. "It's pretty crazy, everybody's got some pretty crazy tricks and when you get us on huge big jumps it's going to be nuts", he says. Also be watching out for Seb Toots (CAN) and Travis Rice (USA) as they attempt to stomp the trick everyone is talking about: the always spectacular Double Cork.

ABOUT SWATCH TTR:

Founded by Terje Haakonsen and industry innovators in 2002, the SWATCH TTR World Snowboard Tour is a non-profit, rider-driven organization with the mission to create the highest quality competitive snowboard environment in the world, using authenticity, accessibility, innovation as guiding principles. Since its foundation, the Swatch TTR Tour has been developing into the most exposed snowboard tour worldwide featuring global grass root and key independent freestyle snowboarding events over a ten-month period from Southern to Northern Hemisphere locations. Events are rated via a 1-through-6Star system, with points allocated accordingly, a 6Star event holds the highest (1000 Swatch TTR points). Any rider participating in these events, from up-and-coming to professional talent, earns ranking points and a position on the SWATCH TTR World Ranking List. The top male and female rider based on an average of their best seven results of the season is crowned SWATCH TTR World Snowboard Tour Champion.