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ContestHappening 3 2016/17 | In & Out

Who's out, who's in?

by Tobias Huber 01/11/2017
The first contests are coming up, with Japan and Tyrol kicking things off. As the start of the FWT season is still two weeks away, let's take a quick look at the In&Outs of the FWT starting field.

Axamer Lizum

After the first snowfalls of the winter, things no longer looked so bad for the contests planned for January in Tirol. Unfortunately, the 3* contest planned for January 14 in the Axamer Lizum had to be postponed due to the weather forecast for the coming weekend. As the snow cover in the Kalkkögel still leaves a lot to be desired for a top-class competition, the date for the contest stop near the Tyrolean capital was postponed by a further three weeks to February 4th. The first contest in the Eastern Alps will therefore be the 2* FWQ in Kappl on January 20-22.

Hakuba

On January 13, riders will compete for points towards the overall standings at this new 4* event. This will be the first time an FWQ contest has been held in Japan and to increase interest, Travis Rice has been invited at short notice. In the region on the main island, which will be familiar from the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano (Hermann Maier!), the local Japanese riders will face a strong field of participants from America, Europe and Oceania in a very international 4* qualifier. The weather window runs from January 12 to 18, 2017 and the contest will be held on the slope with the promising name "The Mix" (1950m, see picture above). On average, it is 40 gad steep and has a vertical extension of 900m, which is rather atypical for Japan. There will be a live webcast for the event on the day of the competition, starting at 9am Japanese time - in Central Europe that's 1am. The webcast will be available at www.freerideworldtour.com.

On the night of February 11, the 2* FWQ preceding the 4* event took place on the backside of the Hakuba Happo-one ski resort. Until more is known, here are the results:

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In & Out 2017

Let's start by recalling the winners of the 2016 season. As the men's ski final in Verbier was canceled, you might not even remember who actually won. In the current competition, the field of participants is gradually shrinking from 62 (2016) to 50 (2017) and finally to 46 (2018). This should provide the racers with better snow conditions and make it easier to market the streamlined program. In addition, the prize money can be distributed among fewer participants. This means that some well-known names will no longer be taking part in the tour for the time being. At the same time, however, there are new faces: with snowboardersThomas Feuerstein and snowboarder and Manuela Mandl (PG reporter!), there are even riders from German-speaking countries taking part again this time without a wildcard award.

The new riders who have advanced from the qualifiers to the World Tour:

The official starting field for the 2017 season comprises a total of 50 participants. With additional wildcards, places have been kept open for local racers, so two additional locals will be competing in Andorra with Aymar Navarro (ESP) and Dani Fornell-Prat (AND) and a local veteran with Flo Orley (AUT) in Fieberbrunn.

In the men's skiing, the wildcards go to Conor Pelton (USA) (injury wildcard) and Sam Anthamatten (SUI) (crowd favorite wildcard?). Lorraine Huber (AUT), who was partially injured last season, and Hazel Birnbaum (USA) will expand the women's skiing field, while the snowboard wildcards go to Christoffer Granbom (SWE) and Polo De Le Rue (FRA) as well as Nicola Thost (GER) and Shannan Yates (USA).

Due to the tragic events following last year's FWT season, in which Estelle Ballet and Matilda Rapaport died during the production of filming, their starting places have been filled by the next highest finishers from the 2016 final rankings.

The starting field of the FWT 2017:

22 ski men (14 FWT 2016, 6 FWQ 2016, 2 wildcards) Top 13 qualify for 2018 10 ski women (7 FWT 2016, 2 FWQ 2016, 1 wildcard) Top 6 qualify for 2018
10 snowboard men (7 FWT 2016, 2 FWQ 2016, 1 wildcard) Top 6 qualify for 2018
8 snowboard women (5 FWT 2016, 2 FWQ 2016, 1 wildcard) Top 4 qualify for 2018

You can find detailed information on the starting field in the gallery:

Photo gallery

This article has been automatically translated by DeepL with subsequent editing. If you notice any spelling or grammatical errors or if the translation has lost its meaning, please write an e-mail to the editors.

Show original (German)

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