Ståle Sandbech

Career

Sandbech comes from Rykkinn in Bærum and competes for the club BSK Snowboard. He started snowboarding at the age of eight and, in 2007, was invited to the rookie-competition of The Arctic Challenge. The organizer of TAC Terje Håkonsen said Sandbech was the best 13-year-old snowboarder in Norway at the time.

Sandbech represented Norway at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, becoming the youngest Norwegian to go to the Olympics since Sonja Henie represented Norway at the 1928 Winter Olympics 82 years earlier. Sandbech won the World Snowboarding Tour in freestyle in 2011–12.

Sandbech won a bronze medal in Big Air at the 2013 Winter X Games, where his countryman Torstein Horgmo won gold. Four Norwegians qualified for the Big Air final in the 2014 games, with Sandbech placing the highest and winning the bronze medal. The next day, he won another bronze medal in slopestyle.

At the 2014 Winter Olympics, Sandbech participated in slopestyle, the first time it was included in an Olympic program. In his first run he tried a triple cork, but failed to land it. He had a successful second run, and with 91.75 points he placed second behind Sage Kotsenburg. It was Norway's first medal in the 2014 Olympics. Former snowboarder and Norwegian TV 2 commentator, Andreas Wiig, and the Swedish slopestyle competitor, Sven Thorgren, both stated that Sandbech should have won the gold as he performed better than Kotsenburg in their opinions.