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Peak Performers: Todd Richards, snowboarding

Todd Richards, former professional snowboarder and longtime Breckenridge local.
NBC Sports / Special to The Daily

Editor’s note: Readers nominated their all-time favorite Summit County athletes for Peak Performers: The Mount Rushmore of Summit County athletes. Voting is now live at SummitDaily.com/peakperformers.

Nominee: Todd Richards
Sport: Snowboarding

The face of snowboarding in his prime, longtime Breckenridge local Todd Richards goes down in history as one of the most important figures in the sport’s evolution.



Richards, a Massachusetts native, found his way to Breckenridge’s legendary halfpipe scene in the early ’90s after the avid skateboarder honed his craft on the Stratton Mountain pipe in Vermont. Based out of Breckenridge, like so many pros a quarter century ago, Richards won more than a dozen medals at the Grand Prix, X Games and Burton U.S. Open as one of the most prolific of ’90s riders.

Though he didn’t finish as well as he would have liked, Richards was a main player on the U.S.’s inaugural Olympic snowboard team at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. More importantly, he’ll go down in history as one of the snowboarders who progressed the sport from its Alpine race roots to more a skate style, which pervades the sport and snowboarding community to this day.



Since his contest days concluded, Richards has remained one of the most recognizable faces and voices in snowboarding thanks to his work as a television broadcaster for NBC Sports, including at several Olympics.

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