Freeride World Tour

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

Good show on shitty snow. Vibes to Joan. Brutal.

Anyone know what skis Tester is on? Next years Revolt?

[powdork]

my pick for the all around womens ski champ. not sure how i didn't see this, or maybe I did

[puma]

That was rough to see. Hope he is ok.

[meter-man]

Great comp. Again would have put 2 above 1. Thought Tester's line, execution, style, air, and control were all basically flawless (minus a tiny wheelie on bottom air).

Unreal skiing all around, especially given challenging conditions.

Heal up, Joan!!

What a show. My daughters were psyched on local girl Lily Bradley taking 3rd. Woot!!

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

[total_immortal]

I thought Maxime was the clear winner. He had a unique line very late in the comp, cleared that massive step-up then into an enormous backy and finally opened up the entire lookers-left side of that giant rock. I think if he went earlier in the line-up we would have seen more skiers go that direction. Tester in 2nd was the correct call but he did have that wheelie off the backflip that should have maybe docked his control a little more? Honestly, I wasn't as stoked for this as I was for Spain. Conditions were tough and I'm surprised we didn't see more carnage.

[toast2266]

I thought Maxime was the clear winner. He had a unique line very late in the comp, cleared that massive step-up then into an enormous backy and finally opened up the entire lookers-left side of that giant rock.

Agreed. Tester's run was great, and he definitely deserved 2nd. But Maxime's run was more interesting, more complicated, and way riskier. He had multiple features that were super committed and/or very blind.

[TahoeJ]

I thought the podium was correct. Maxime not only cleared that windlip gap but he went HUGE when he did it. I'm sure he scored extra points for line choice that put him over Tester. Both great runs.

Oh man, that crash was brutal to watch.

Nice bounce back from Jess Hotter too. I also chose her to win the overall.

[Angle Parking]

Judging was mostly correct IMO. All in all, the FWT gets it pretty darn close to right most of the time I feel which is pretty impressive..

Solid entertainment again this week. Is this the golden age of freeriding (in men's ski anyways)? The athletes are so so so good.

Happy the tour is coming to my native home and land but ....I am jonesing for BIG Mountain skiing.

[Dantheman]

Solid entertainment again this week. Is this the golden age of freeriding (in men's ski anyways)? The athletes are so so so good.

Seriously, the skiing was ridiculous again this week. Imagine what may have gone down with even marginally better snow.

[altacoup]

Yeah. It’s pretty mind boggling what they do in bad conditions. When the FWT was first being organized there was lots of talk about how they’d wait for better conditions to improve the product. At the time free skiing comps were being held on specific dates conditions be dammed (I think the worst ski conditions I’ve ever skied in were in a comp). While I understand that Mother Nature can be a crappy business partner and logistics are tough. There’s been a lot of comps in crap conditions the past few years. It would be great to see these guys have the chance to show off on big venues with good snow. That said often times good snow just leads to a huck fest with half the field crashing by going too big. Pumped my boy Pollard is second overall!

[ddraver]

Trouble with that is that the only way to do that is to change the schedule so that you hold the comps at places where the snow is good that weekend.

Not much point having comps anywhere other than Austria in Europe right now so it would have been great if we could have had the Canada legs first...etc.

Trouble is that's a bit difficult to organise on a shoestring budget

[Smooth Johnson]

I’d like to see more carving and less big air.
Maybe get Olin involved as a sponsor, drop a couple lanes of corduroy in each venue. Now that’s an event!

[meter-man]

I was gonna light up you guys and tell you "yer all wrong and dummy-dunderheads" but my wife watched the top 5 last night and agreed with all of you. So I guess Maxi did deserve the win!

I thought Maxime was the clear winner. He had a unique line very late in the comp, cleared that massive step-up then into an enormous backy and finally opened up the entire lookers-left side of that giant rock. I think if he went earlier in the line-up we would have seen more skiers go that direction. Tester in 2nd was the correct call but he did have that wheelie off the backflip that should have maybe docked his control a little more? Honestly, I wasn't as stoked for this as I was for Spain. Conditions were tough and I'm surprised we didn't see more carnage.

Agreed. Tester's run was great, and he definitely deserved 2nd. But Maxime's run was more interesting, more complicated, and way riskier. He had multiple features that were super committed and/or very blind.

I thought the podium was correct. Maxime not only cleared that windlip gap but he went HUGE when he did it. I'm sure he scored extra points for line choice that put him over Tester. Both great runs.

***

I’d like to see more carving and less big air.
Maybe get Olin involved as a sponsor, drop a couple lanes of corduroy in each venue. Now that’s an event!

^^^post of the thread? lol

[grskier]

I somehow cleaned up in Men's snowboarding and got a few points elsewhere to make a good jump.

The level being skied in these things is pretty high, I love seeing it, except when it goes wrong as it did in this comp. That part is really hard to see, but it's an unfortunate part of the sport. I haven't had time to go back and pick apart a few of the mistakes I've seen but it get's really hard to listen to the constant positive spin on the mistakes these guys make sometimes. This has never been as forefront as this past comp. landing on a rock because you missed your angle a little bit a few and they fell.. some got through it and they call them snipers.... They are a very good shot that got lucky is more the narrative they should put out there. I'm not sure if any of these athletes go back and watch the comp and listen to the announcing, but I hope it doesn't give anyone any false confidence.

[total_immortal]

Agree with you grskier, and you would know better than most.

[TahoeJ]

I think part of it is Smoothy’s sister filling-in this season in the booth (apologies, can’t recall her name at the moment). She’s doing fine so far but I think it might take some time to settle into doing it before being a little less positive / more critical.

Barkered, however, did land on a rock that was covered up by a thin layer of snow. So that commentary was fair.

[grskier]

I think part of it is Smoothy’s sister filling-in this season in the booth (apologies, can’t recall her name at the moment). She’s doing fine so far but I think it might take some time to settle into doing it before being a little less positive / more critical.

Barkered, however, did land on a rock that was covered up by a thin layer of snow. So that commentary was fair.

He's as veteran as that gets and this still happens, it's part of picking lines and recognizing the pack, etc.
There were others that went into that peppery section up top and one of the first guys uncovered a rock and was relatively OK pulling through, but the sniper comment came out... and yeah, good shot, but he still got lucky.

[Long duc dong]

I finally got to watch the first event and I was really impressed.

I love to watch guys do tricks, but I particularly liked watching Abel Moga. It was a great line and he skied it very well. When someone can get on the podium without doing tricks that says a ton about the way they are skiing.

[Clownshoe]

I do a bit of announcing for junior freeride comps around here.

It’s a tough balance for the announcers to keep the viewers informed, hype all the riders up, and find the line between calling the run in a generally positive manner but also “keeping it real”.

The viewers can see when someone takes a conservative line, blows a turn, eats shit, etc. The announcer doesn’t need to bury the athletes at the same time.

For the top riders who throw down and stand out it’s easy to call. Everyone watching can see they’re killing it. The stoke is real. For the middle of the pack and lower riders, it’s can be hard to call. After 20-30 athletes drop the same 10 foot cliff, it’s tough to find new ways to talk about it

“Jimmy Smith is slowly skiing around the big airs, taking the easy way down. That was likely a bottom 5 run.” is never appropriate for the announcer to say, even if it’s true and everyone knows it.

Definitely in the junior comps we hype the kids up regardless of how they’re doing because you’d have to be a heartless prick to blow the kids up on the mic.

But I’d say even in the top level comps the announcer is trying to be a hype man at the same time as calling the action. Maybe there’s a portion of the viewers that would prefer brutally honest commentary without the fluff but that’s generally not what the sponsors/organizers want. It’s a bit of a buzz kill to the event if the announcer is being a downer and crushing the athletes on the mic.

Plus on the FWT, the announcers are on the road with the athletes, probably friends with most of them, skiing with them and likely staying in the same hotels. I don’t think the announcers would last long if they aren’t hyping up everyone.

[TahoeJ]

Yeah I’d also agree keeping it positive is more in line with the spirit of big mountain skiing in the first place.

[subtle plague]

I like that the announcers always have such a positive attitude when commenting the mammoth comp. such a great venue.

[abraham]

I like that the announcers always have such a positive attitude when commenting the mammoth comp. such a great venue.

Getting to be tiresome, Bunny.

Pretty sure Chicherit had some pretty positive comments about the comp scene there.

[bobinch]

I think part of it is Smoothy’s sister filling-in this season in the booth (apologies, can’t recall her name at the moment). She’s doing fine so far but I think it might take some time to settle into doing it before being a little less positive / more critical.

Barkered, however, did land on a rock that was covered up by a thin layer of snow. So that commentary was fair.

Anna Smoothy, that’s her personality, bubbly, uber positive. I guess that’s why they chose her. She’s a super nice lady. Oh and she would smoke most of the nit pickers on here in the Gnar 😉 Just sayin…

[grskier]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the announcing is bad, just could strike a better balance when someone lands on a rock or whatever.

My context is from announcing events as well.... I get the balance, I get the not saying the same thing 1,000,000 times.

Part of the story telling is getting people to relate. Instead of Sniper Landing when the land on the rock with one of two skis, say, man, you can be off by a millimeter and it can make a bad day, glad they skied away from that.

It's really, really hard to slow down and be able to be both present in observing and have the mental delay to the announcing a few seconds later. They do a pretty darn good job at that.

[TahoeJ]

The winning run...