Warwick teen takes home top prizes at snowboarding competitions
Warwick. At just 16, Max Fox Rabdau is already looking ahead toward Olympic glory.
Warwick /
| 29 Apr 2024 | 11:29
Max Fox Rabdau wins gold at the 2024 East Coast Future’s Tour at Mount Snow, Vt. (
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Five year-old Max Fox Rabdau at the Twisted Kids competition at Mountain Creek in Vernon, NJ. (
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It’s been a banner year on the slopes for Warwick’s Max Fox Rabdau, who took home gold and silver medals after competing in two national snowboarding championships this season.
Rabdau, 16, won gold at the 2024 East Coast Future’s Tour at Vermont’s Mount Snow, and silver at the 2024 American Snowboarding and Freeski Association national championships for “slopestyle” snowboarding at Copper Mountain in Colorado.
Slopestyle is an event in snowboarding where athletes ride a course of consecutive, large jumps (some as high as 60 feet) preceded or followed by a variety of obstacles, including rails and other terrain features. Points are scored for amplitude, style, quality, and difficulty of tricks.
Rabdau learned to snowboard at the age of 3 on the slopes of Mount Peter and by the time he was 5, he began riding and competing at Mountain Creek in Vernon, NJ. For the last two winter seasons, he joined the Okemo Mountain School team at Okemo, Vt. After placing second in the nation this year, he has decided to pursue snowboarding full-time with the hopes to qualify for the Olympics and X-Games. He will be traveling the world to train and compete with a small snowboarding team based out of Summit County, Colo. in 2025.
Training in the off-season often involves skateboarding and wakeboarding. As such, Rabdau encourages donations to the Warwick Skatepark Initiative, a nonprofit community advocacy group formed to build a premier skatepark in Veteran’s Memorial Park in the village of Warwick as well as the GWL Skatepark Corp., a registered nonprofit comprised of a team of locals seeking to build a professional skatepark in Greenwood Lake.
“There is a large, forgotten community in Warwick that believes skateboarding is more than just a hobby,” he said. “It is an outlet for creativity, self- development, and friendship. Skateboarding is a source of both joy and refuge.”
For more information on the skate parks or to donate, visit warwickskatepark.com and gwlskatepark.com.