On the weekend of February 21-23, 2014, the 14th edition of the First Track Freeride Contest took place in the small ski resort of St. Luc /Chandolin in the beautiful Val d'Anniviers. The weather and snow conditions could hardly have been better: On Friday and on Sunday night, around 15 cm of very light fresh snow fell on a relatively solid and soft base. This meant that nothing stood in the way of the "first tracks" for the two runs on Saturday and Sunday! Nico Göz reports again for PowderGuide from the Valais:
Initial situation
In the week before the contest, there had already been considerable amounts of fresh snow in southern Valais. From Friday, February 14 to Monday, February 17, around 50-60 cm of the white splendor was added in the region. So the anticipation was written all over the faces of the participants after the first face inspection on Saturday morning: No tracks and a variety of spectacular downhill options on the challenging contest face See for yourself, the two photos, above...
Action
A total of around 100 riders qualified for the field this year. Of these, around 50 male skiers, 15 female skiers, 5 female snowboarders and 30 male snowboarders from 14 nations took part. The course was organized as follows: The face was divided into two sections, with the skiers skiing the left side first on Saturday (start 1) and the snowboarders the right side (start 2). The sides were then switched on Sunday. The points awarded for the two runs were added together to produce the result. This meant that the result of the first day was hardly meaningful and on the second day there was the possibility of fundamental changes, which led to more excitement and raised the level even higher. As a result, terrifyingly high cliff drops, countless tricks and frighteningly fluid lines in very steep terrain were once again the order of the day this year.
Among the snowboarders, Italian Tommaso Gazzini particularly impressed the judges this year with his two extremely fluid runs with high jumps, which is why he deserved to take first place. But the two local heroes Mike Aeschbach (2nd) and Simon Favez (3rd) from Valais were also able to demonstrate their skills once again and also achieved podium finishes. The snowboarders Géraldine Grand (1st) and Estelle Lecomte (3rd) from Switzerland had also collected enough points for the "podium" after two days. Sweden's Sara Hultman secured 2nd place. Switzerland also took two podium places among the skiers: Jonas Monnin (1st) and Adrien Hildebrand (3rd). In between them was the Frenchman William Cochet (2nd). France was only the most successful nation in the women's skiing: France's Laure Vailly won ahead of her compatriot Stefanie Cooke (3rd) and Sweden's Filippa Ring (2nd). All other results and action photos can be found here.
Conclusion
Taking part in the only FWQ contest in Val d'Anniviers (also known as a freeride mecca) was great fun again this year: In addition to the super beautiful and challenging contest face, the fine fresh snow and dream weather were mainly responsible for exceeding the already high expectations. Unfortunately, with my 15th place, I was not very successful at the First-Track Freeride in Chandolin. But after my less successful contest runs, I enjoyed freeriding with new and old friends all the more! If you're interested, you can take a look at my two contest lines and a fun run here:
Respect to the Valais Mountain Gods for all this perfection! Niko
