Why are Olympic snowboarders tucking their number bibs under their arms?

MILAN, Italy — The world’s best snowboarders started competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics on Thursday, even before Friday’s Opening Ceremony. 

One of the Games’ first events was the men’s big air qualifying, where athletes launched off a massive ramp and were awarded points based on the style, execution and technical difficulty of tricks they performed while in the air.

Some snowboarders, including Italy’s Ian Matteoli, China’s Su Yiming and Britain’s Txema Mazet Brown, competed while tucking one side of their number bib, which Olympians are required to wear, under their armpit. The reason behind the practice, though, is more function than fashion.

“Sometimes those bibs can fly up in your eyes. That’s very, very dangerous. So a lot of the riders will tuck it under their arm,” CBC Olympics snowboarding expert Craig McMorris said during the 2022 Winter Olympics in China.

Numerous notable snowboarders have adopted the tucking practice, including United States star Chloe Kim, who tucked the bib when she won her second gold medal during the snowboard halfpipe event in 2022, and New Zealand’s Synnott Sadowski, whose 2022 medals included a gold in slopestyle and silver in big air.

The practice, however, isn’t universal. Gold medal halfpipe snowboarder Ayumu Hirano of Japan didn’t use it during her 2022 performance. 

Some snowboarders have made other fashion statements. French snowboarder Lucile Lefevre was a crowd pleaser during 2022’s Big Air Shougang when she wore a tiger costume during qualifying. Lefevre was injured and knew she couldn’t do the big tricks necessary to make the finals. So, she borrowed an orange-and-black big-cat costume from Swiss snowboarder Nicolas Huber.