ContestHappening 02/2020 | First stop in Hakuba

The contest took place on the 1790 meter high Kuzureizawa, in the so-called "South Bowl". The face stretches over 370 meters and offered challenging, changeable conditions with relatively little snow. In addition, some riders, especially the snowboarders and the first few men's skiers, unfortunately had to deal with flat light.

Here is the video with all the runs FWT stop in Hakuba.

Snowboard men

The first mark was set by Elias Elhardt after a near-crash by Sammy Luebke (USA) among the snowboarders. Two 360s, a method and a round line put him in third place. Defending champion Victor De Le Rue (FRA) took first place, seamlessly continuing his winning streak at the FWT: his victory in Hakuba was his fifth podium finish in a row this season. The 30-year-old started with a 180 on the slope and shone with a wide backflip. "I started with a good trick, my second backflip of the season. It went really well. I was able to land it perfectly. After that, however, I lost my line and had to improvise," said De le Rue afterwards. While the rest of the field was visibly struggling with flat light, the last starter and wildcard holder Nils Mindnich put a nice line into the face as if it wasn't his first time at the start and ended up in second place as a result. This meant that the snowboarding podium consisted of wildcard invitations.

Men's skiing

In the skiing category, victory went to FWT veteran Drew Tabke (USA), with Reine Barkered (SWE), another veteran, also scoring points this time. Tabke put down a very smooth run and impressed the judges with a massive backflip. Here is the run of the winner:

Third-placed Barkered did almost the same, also with backflips and drops in the more technical area of the face. Placed between the old hands is 22-year-old New Zealand FWT rookie Hank Bilous. After a frontflip to start the face, he performed a transfer air in the middle of the slope, followed by a 360 at high speed. While 35-year-old Tabke and 37-year-old Barkered kept the average age high in the top spots, there were a few more runs worth seeing. Andrew Pollard's lines always show the signature of his teacher Drew Tabke, a truly impressive approach. Other runs worth seeing include Isaac Freeland's (USA) creative run, Carl Regner Eriksson's (SWE) 360, Tim Durtschi's (USA) high speed run and the always controlled Tom Pfeiffer (CAN).

Tao Kreibich from Altach in Vorarlberg (AUT) stood a backflip, but tried too hard with a 360 at the end, got stuck in the snow and had to settle for 18th place. "My first FWT experience was very mixed," he reported afterwards. "I had a lot of fun and felt good until I gave away a better result shortly before the finish." Konstantin Ottner from Kaufbeuren (GER) crashed after a backflip on the same cliff and finished in 19th place.