Tobias Huber

You spend the whole day looking forward to the live stream of the Freeride World Tour, perfectly timed for the working and skiing population of Central Europe, and then - not for the first time - the broadcast has to contend with severe problems.

Just like last year, the ski brands represented at the trade fair are becoming fewer and fewer. After the absence of the major Amer Sports brands Atomic and Salomon (and therefore also Armada) since last year, Black Crows, for example, is now also missing.

The FJT starts the new season with up to 3000 young athletes who want to gain experience in contest freeriding. The young U-14 riders are now also taking part in some events. In addition, the participants will be divided into the U-16 and U-18 categories for the first time. New venues are on the agenda in Iceland and Japan and efforts are being made to make contest freeriding more popular in these locations too. The season finale returns to Verbier.

A somewhat decimated field of riders enjoys the first FWT tour stop in Japan in excellent snow and weather conditions. Wildcard holder Travis Rice not only outdoes his snowboard colleagues on this face, Markus Eder wins the skiers' race ahead of Tanner Hall. Ari Tricomi picks up where she left off last season and Anna Orlova comes out on top in the snowboarding category.

Only three days to go until the start of the FWT in Hakuba, Japan. The organizers hope to hold the contest on Friday, 18.01.2019. Injuries and wildcards are causing further changes to the rider field, which is gradually arriving in the Hakuba Valley on the Japanese main island. Everything you need to know before the first tour stop of the 2019 season can be found here:

It's just under a month until the first stop of the 2019 Freeride World Tour (FWT) takes place in Japan. The qualifiers (FWQ) and juniors (FJT) will also not start until the beginning of January. Nevertheless, to get you in the mood for the upcoming contest season, the following article summarizes which riders will be taking part in the tour this year. Who got a wildcard and who has advanced from the qualifiers? Find out here!

Season finale of the contest season in good but not quite easy conditions: The last 4* contest of the qualifier season in Obergurgl once again decided who will be seen as a rookie in the Freeride World Tour next year.

The winners of the 2018 Freeride World Tour (FWT) have been announced. At the Xtreme Verbier on the relatively snow-covered Bec des Rosses in Valais, Manuela Mandl (AUT) from Vienna came third and thus won the women's snowboard tour. Victory in Verbier went to Marion Haerty (FRA). The snowboarder winner was Sammy Luebke (USA), who also came first in the overall standings for the third time in a row.

The Freeride Junior World Championships, the most prestigious junior competition, took place this week in Kappl, Tyrol. The 4* FWQ was also held in Nendaz at the same time. Find out who can now call themselves Junior Freeride World Champion and what the status of the qualifiers is here.

At the penultimate tour stop of the FWT, things got down to business once again and in most categories it remained exciting right up to the end in Verbier. However, Kristoffer Turdell has already secured the FWT title in the men's skiing category. The day after the FWT, a 3* FJT contest took place at the Wildseeloder from the women's start, which we will also report on at the end.

There hasn't been much going on in the contest area in recent weeks. But while the FWT circus is now slowly traveling to Andorra to hold the first European tour stop of the season next weekend, two top-class qualifiers took place last weekend with the 3* FWQ Silvretta Montafon and the 4* FWQ Jasna Adrenalin.

The Lupo series from Dalbello entered its third round this season. After the normal Lupo model was extended with tech inserts two years ago, the high-end Lupo Carbon T.I. model followed last year with improved shaft rotation (67°), removable tongue and optimized weight. This season, Dalbello is offering a whole range of Lupo models. I have been using one of these models, the Lupo 130C, for a year now and would like to share my experiences here.