Manuel's Details
About Manuel
Manuel Pietropoli was born in Lonato (Brescia) on April 30, 1990.
He was a frequent visitor to the ski slopes from an early age, and at six his father put him on a snowboard for the first time. Manuel felt at ease on the board straight away and started to warm up to the sport. At the age of nine he won his first race, and a year later he took part in the first Big A Summer Camp. Pietropoli is a product of the new generation of snowboarders that learnt the sport straight away on the board rather than starting off on skis. Manuel’s technique continued to improve, partly thanks to the efforts of his parents, Franca and Giorgio, who took him all over the Alps to allow him to prepare for and take part in competitions.
In 2002 he took part in his first retreat with the national team, and started to travel around Europe competing in international-level events.
Since 2005 he has been taking part in the World Cup, the Nor-Am Cup (a circuit of races that take place in the USA and are comparable to the World Cup organised by the ISF) and the Half-Pipe World Championship. He really came into his own that same year when he won the European stage of the World Rookie Fest, an international circuit reserved for under 17s. This success allowed him to move ahead to the final of the TTR international professional circuit, the TAC (The Arctic Challenge), the event created by the snowboarding legend Terje Haakonsen, who extended a personal invitation for Manuel to attend the 2006 edition.
In the same year he finished 15th in the World Cup race in Switzerland, and qualified for the Turin Winter Olympics, where, at 15, he was the youngest athlete in his sport for that edition of the Games.
The following year he came third in the Burton European Open and in the Artic Challenge in the Highest Air speciality.
His finest moment, however, was in 2008, when he won the World Cup stage in Bardonecchia, beating the “Highest Jump” record at the O'Neill Evolution Jam: 8m in “Backside Air”
