Freeride World Tour Fieberbrunn 2015 | Report, Part 1

Little snow, lots of pines and a limited number of possible lines challenged the riders' creativity. Unfortunately, many of the ladies got lost in the pines or tried to stand out from their colleagues by jumping too high - and many of them crashed. Ashley Maxfield (USA), for example, attempted a very high jump, which some of the men were not sure was even possible. However, she fell on landing and injured herself. We can only hope that the almost 3000 spectators will not remember the images of riders getting tangled up in pines or falling badly (because these impressions do not do justice to the high level of the ladies' riding!) but the strong runs of the three ladies on the podium. Lorainne Huber (AUT) was the first of them to start the race. After a jump in the upper middle section, she showed a line that was difficult to orientate for her second jump in the lower right section of the face. This secured her third place after the injury-related break in Chamonix.

Lotten Rapp from Sweden, who qualified for the FWT in the FWQ series, started her line in the upper left section of the face, unlike many of the women, to reach the open middle section with a big jump. After fast, big turns, she skied a clever, flowing line through the pines in the lower right part of the slope, which she finished off with a small jump. The 25-year-old Swede thus took victory in Fieberbrunn after her sixth place in France.

After her victory in Chamonix, Eva Walkner went to the start in Fieberbrunn with a lot of confidence. After almost the same jump in the upper part of the face as Lorainne Huber, Eva skied with a lot of speed through the middle, more open part. In the lower section, after a few technical turns in a gully, she took some speed out of her run to follow up with a series of smaller jumps in quick succession before mastering the last part of her run in the open terrain, again with plenty of speed. This run should secure her second place at the home event and thus probably also the ticket to Alaska.

Rumors about a relocation to Kappl were already making the rounds before the competition in Fieberbrunn and after the cancellation of three competitions, the face already used last year was inspected on Sunday. In the evening, it was confirmed that the remaining snowboard women's, snowboard men's and ski men's competitions would be held in Kappl in the Paznaun Valley on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015. The riders will move to Kappl on Monday for the face check. In Kappl, which is situated at a higher altitude, a base has been building up over the season and there were also good reports of sufficient fresh snow in the ski resort at the weekend. The weather forecast for Tuesday predicts a window of good weather. This means that the competitions in Austria still seem to be possible before the Freeride World Tour continues to Andorra in the Pyrenees for the third stop. The contest will once again be livestreamed on PowderGuide.com.