Snowboarding has become a very popular winter sport in North America, Asia, Europe and New Zealand. Around ten Million Boarders perform the sport worldwide and the sport disciplines are splitted in mainly Freeride/Freestyle orientated disciplines like Halfpipe, Snowboard Cross, Slopestyle and Alpine Racing with Parallel Slalom and Parallel Giant Slalom only performed in the FIS Alpine Snowboard World cup and all together at Olympic games like Sotschi 2014.

In general snowboarding moves from competitive formats towards freeriding in powder snow or fun parks. Most of the snowboarders prefer soft boots and soft bindings and 7 % of all fractures caused by snowboarding are fractures of the talus and the mid foot. The fracture of the lateral process of the talus (LPT), so called “snowboarder’s ankle”, is a typical lesion on the front foot in case of unexpected moguls, rollers and hard impact landings with the mechanism of dorsiflexion, hyperpronation and external rotation. This lesion is often ignored and treated as a lateral ligament ankle sprain. It is important to ask for special binding systems, which stance is used and ask whether the front foot is the affected one. Therefore it is necessary to perform a perfect clinical investigation in the hospitals. If a snowboarder reports pain 1 cm distal from the tip of the lateral malleolus and reports pain during weightbearing especially at movements in dorsiflexion and hyperpronation an X Ray/Broden view and CT Scan are necessary to detect this lesion. All dislocated snowboader’s ankle need an operative treatment, usually done with minimal invasive percutaneous osteosynthesis by cannulated titanium screws. If you miss the diagnosis the fragment of the LPT will be destroyed and must be resected. This procedure may lead to a posttraumatic osteoarthritis of the subtalar joint. Many of these snowboarders are not able to proceed with snowboarding.

Mid- and forefoot fractures are mostly caused by an open ankle strap of the softbinding systems. In case of dislocation operative treatment is necessary, if there is no dislocation a conservative treatment with a walkerboot is a good option.