2015 freeride world tour

**grskier** · 01-24-2015, 10:50 AM

i missed it this am... anyone find replay yet?

**oftpiste** · 01-24-2015, 11:01 AM

yes, after a ridiculous 45 minute effort I found the replay of the skiers.

here:http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2f...t-replay_sport

it's inconceivable to me they make it so fucking hard to watch it. or maybe I'm just a maroon.

**Vt-Freeheel** · 01-24-2015, 11:05 AM

Took me less than 60 seconds to find the same thing.

**oftpiste** · 01-24-2015, 12:15 PM

must be an east coast thing.

**Atrain505** · 01-24-2015, 01:07 PM

Good watch as always!

**Gone Skiing** · 01-24-2015, 03:33 PM

For complaining about NA's lack of good venues, fwt keeps using some pretty unimpressive venues.

**powdork** · 01-24-2015, 03:34 PM

Venue seems tame ans lame.

**Lindahl** · 01-24-2015, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by Gone Skiing

For complaining about NA's lack of good venues, fwt keeps using some pretty unimpressive venues.

Totally agree. Relatively tame. Lots of features for small air though, I guess. Surprised by the number of tumbles as well. Looked like great snow, and the usuals did well, but it seemed like the level of competitors was lower for this event.

**RiderX** · 01-24-2015, 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by Gone Skiing

For complaining about NA's lack of good venues, fwt keeps using some pretty unimpressive venues.

That is the first thing I thought when I turned on the live feed this morning. Also just reread Barkered's comments in Powder concerning the NA venues. Would be interesting to know his thoughts on today's competition site. It obviously suited him as he placed second, but the venue didn't look impressive to me.

**2FUNKY** · 01-24-2015, 09:37 PM

Originally Posted by Lindahl

Totally agree. Relatively tame. Lots of features for small air though, I guess. Surprised by the number of tumbles as well. Looked like great snow, and the usuals did well, but it seemed like the level of competitors was lower for this event.

I heard one of the commentators say something about the nasty sun crust, that could have contributed to the spills. I did notice some big chunks flying from their skis. Still looked pretty tame though.

**inthemtns** · 01-24-2015, 09:43 PM

Is it just me or was that a lame winning run?

How did tabke not take it?

**Atrain505** · 01-25-2015, 01:19 AM

Winning run deserved to win. He skied possibly the biggest two airs with the most commitment and speed and fluidity. That run had a lot more wow than tabke. Tabke deserved his placing as well. The difference being tabkes approach has a better chance of success over an entire season. Loic keeps skiing like that and he is going to blow up at a couple events with huge crashes.

Fun watch but really venue complaints? That venue yes isn't the greatest but it is better than every North American venue minus revelstoke. Which I cannot believe they got rid of. Well i can because it's in the middle of nowhere and very few live spectators. But the venue was probably the 2nd best on the tour behind verbier. You could argue that snowbird and kirkwood are equivalent but they are mostly rolly Polly the whole way. Not much steepness.

Still very much enjoy watching and they should do a better job of advertising the replay because it is way better to watch the replay than individual runs out of order.

As far as skiing performance. Crust. The announcers mentioned it and that's all you need to know. With that said I would have killed for those conditions when I competed. I mostly competed on rock hard ice over 4 seasons. Think I skied in one comp with decent soft snow conditions. Maybe two but that was pretty crusty as well.

I really hope the Alaska comp goes absolutely off this year. Congrats on the guys who skied well. Not an easy game.

**freak** · 01-25-2015, 01:46 AM

as for the venue, there are of course much more itneresting ones in chamonix (and probably everywhere), problem is that it is a very low snow year and avy danger remains high, both limits the choice of events. weather forecast also looked bad for the next days, combine that with making it much more worthwhile for them to hold the comp. on a saturday rather than on e.g. a monday.
i also think probably north american resorts just decided they did not want to pay a ton of money to host FWT events...

freak~[

&

]

**powdork** · 01-25-2015, 02:28 AM

Originally Posted by Atrain505

Fun watch but really venue complaints? That venue yes isn't the greatest but it is better than every North American venue minus revelstoke. Which I cannot believe they got rid of. Well i can because it's in the middle of nowhere and very few live spectators. But the venue was probably the 2nd best on the tour behind verbier. You could argue that snowbird and kirkwood are equivalent but they are mostly rolly Polly the whole way. Not much steepness.
...
As far as skiing performance. Crust. The announcers mentioned it and that's all you need to know. With that said I would have killed for those conditions when I competed. I mostly competed on rock hard ice over 4 seasons. Think I skied in one comp with decent soft snow conditions. Maybe two but that was pretty crusty as well.

Kirkwood has waaaaay more options for airs and techy lines on the north facing (day 2) side. The lower half is more rolly polly but the lower half today wasn't even rolly polly and had no features.
The crust was only on the very sunny aspect and mostly affected the riders out of the alternate gate. Many of the falls were on the more shady aspects.

I personally feel the FWT has been plagued by poor decision making at every turn (think Mt. McGee, Tram Face, moving from Kirkwood to Snowbird last year, etc). They've taken what used to be an awesome idea and made it lamer and tamer for TV viewership. What were there, 50 people watching live today?

**alto** · 01-25-2015, 06:07 AM

I attribute the large number of crashes to first event jitters. People complaining about snow or terrain quality are tripping. The pow was all time up there and the face had dozens of independent lines! Watch Luebke's and Hamm's runs. Such a fun face, and a miracle really -- to find such awesome conditions during one of the thinnest Cham winters on record.

Fieberbrunn is thin too, but there's a whopper of a storm tracking down for Wednesday night.

**Marius** · 01-25-2015, 06:31 AM

@alto: storm got cancelled. expect smethinglike 30cm or not much till the comp.

in general: the venues kinda need to be close to some groomers. otherwise just noone watches the comp. let it be 2-300 souls in cham. or 500 in fieberbrunn with a shitload of marketing and money involved. generally, i do not care about those comps. the skiareas have to pay a ton of money. For Fieberbrunn my sources say something like 150-300k Euros + extras. A 4**** Qualifier should be around 30-50k. All that for this little skiing?

they call it a world championships. with wildcards for riders like Felix Wiemers or other athletes from the right sponsors. He is also german, but wtf, i know girls that ski better.
anyone seen the run of the SNBers in Obergurgl? The austrian Hoffmann got voted for 1place and his run was worse then the run of others. Well... thats how you do when you know the judges personally since years. oh and you can book freeride training with them and the organisers. sure that the Scandinavian guy did not score that well.

Have i written, that this really amuses me?

**klar** · 01-25-2015, 07:01 AM

Originally Posted by Marius

they call it a world championships. with wildcards for riders like Felix Wiemers or other athletes from the right sponsors. He is also german, but wtf, i know girls that ski better.

Perhaps you and/or subtle should challenge him on that wildcard next year. I'd enjoy watching you give TV interviews on BR.

Originally Posted by Marius

anyone seen the run of the SNBers in Obergurgl? The austrian Hoffmann got voted for 1place and his run was worse then the run of others. Well... thats how you do when you know the judges personally since years. oh and you can book freeride training with them and the organisers. sure that the Scandinavian guy did not score that well.

hehe, yeah. the scandi contingent was understandably pissed about that. rooting for niklas to finally move up this year, imo he's been one of the most consistently good snowboarders in the qualifiers for a few years now. judging seems somewhat more transparent on the big kids tour...

**philippeR** · 01-25-2015, 08:10 AM

Originally Posted by Atrain505

Winning run deserved to win. He skied possibly the biggest two airs with the most commitment and speed and fluidity. That run had a lot more wow than tabke. Tabke deserved his placing as well. The difference being tabkes approach has a better chance of success over an entire season. Loic keeps skiing like that and he is going to blow up at a couple events with huge crashes.

Fun watch but really venue complaints? That venue yes isn't the greatest but it is better than every North American venue minus revelstoke. Which I cannot believe they got rid of. Well i can because it's in the middle of nowhere and very few live spectators. But the venue was probably the 2nd best on the tour behind verbier. You could argue that snowbird and kirkwood are equivalent but they are mostly rolly Polly the whole way. Not much steepness.

Still very much enjoy watching and they should do a better job of advertising the replay because it is way better to watch the replay than individual runs out of order.

As far as skiing performance. Crust. The announcers mentioned it and that's all you need to know. With that said I would have killed for those conditions when I competed. I mostly competed on rock hard ice over 4 seasons. Think I skied in one comp with decent soft snow conditions. Maybe two but that was pretty crusty as well.

I really hope the Alaska comp goes absolutely off this year. Congrats on the guys who skied well. Not an easy game.

Originally Posted by alto

I attribute the large number of crashes to first event jitters. People complaining about snow or terrain quality are tripping. The pow was all time up there and the face had dozens of independent lines! Watch Luebke's and Hamm's runs. Such a fun face, and a miracle really -- to find such awesome conditions during one of the thinnest Cham winters on record.

Fieberbrunn is thin too, but there's a whopper of a storm tracking down for Wednesday night.

Thanks for some first hand perspective.

**kootenayskier** · 01-25-2015, 09:45 AM

Always worth watching. Some random observations:
- The guys who played it smart and safe from the main gate (Barkered and Tabke) were over scored. Ditching the line score rule from the judging criteria rewards that shit.
- What's with all the falling, and lame ass skiing. At the lower end of the field there are some real hacks (Baskins) that just aren't up to a professional standard. A smaller field, rad pristine venues, and higher video production values for the win.
- I can't get enough of Guri, Anthermatten, and Heinz. Those guys can ski.
- Loic C/P isn't going to last long charging like that, but it sure is entertaining.

**Big Lepowski** · 01-25-2015, 10:24 AM

I don't know. Full on charging and looking like you're about to fall the whole time isn't as impressive to me as skiing a line with style and fluidity. Thats just my worthless opinion though, obviously judges disagree.

**oftpiste** · 01-25-2015, 01:26 PM

I'm kinda stoked to see what wild-carder George Rodney ("Rodney George" as stated by the announcers!) gets up to through the season. Watched him for years on the juniors and his stock in trade was always sending 'er huge-er than all the rest. Sometimes he blew up but when it worked it worked big. He has impressive abilities for stomping big stuff. Of course there's probably a more strategic approach to doing well on the big show, but it'll be fun to watch.

**Gone Skiing** · 01-25-2015, 01:49 PM

George actually wasn't a wild card, he was 3rd in our region last year. He's certainly got what it takes to kick ass on the FWT. He's also not just a huck-monkey, he can bend a ski with the best of them.

**oftpiste** · 01-25-2015, 01:53 PM

I knew he did well on the qualifiers last year, but thought it took more than that to get on the tour. He is a terrific skier, didn't mean to imply he was solely huckmonkeyness. Why didn't Ian Borgeson stay on the show this year? He was another one we knew from the junior circuit and an amazing, big balled skier as well.

Originally Posted by Gone Skiing

George actually wasn't a wild card, he was 3rd in our region last year. He's certainly got what it takes to kick ass on the FWT. He's also not just a huck-monkey, he can bend a ski with the best of them.

**Gone Skiing** · 01-25-2015, 01:58 PM

Yah Ian was always exciting to watch, such a talent. He cited personal reasons for not returning to the tour this year.

**Shredhead** · 01-25-2015, 09:14 PM

Originally Posted by Gone Skiing

George actually wasn't a wild card, he was 3rd in our region last year. He's certainly got what it takes to kick ass on the FWT. He's also not just a huck-monkey, he can bend a ski with the best of them.

George comes from good stock. He's a little wild, but he is a ripper.
It's kind of sad when all you know are the parents point of view.