Difficult snow conditions and an interesting starting field characterized the bigmountain competition at The Northface New Zealand Freeski Open. With Janina Kuzma and Jossy Wells, two Olympians competed in both the freestyle and big mountain events. Jania managed to win both competitions with two top runs and Jossy impressively showed his skiing skills outside the park and pipe with a fifth place in the big mountain competition. From Europe, Birgit Ertl from Austria showed her qualities with a 2nd place
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A powerful high pressure system has been dominating the weather on the South Island of New Zealand for almost 20 days. While the freestylers were able to enjoy picture-book weather and a perfect park in Cardrona during the preparations and competitions, this meant a lack of fresh snow for the big mountain riders - and that for weeks. The snow conditions in the qualifying and final face were accordingly not very appealing. Qualifying took place on Monday in bright sunshine in the Shadow Basin of the Remarkables near Queenstown. The starting field of around 15 women and 40 men was a colorful mix, from 16-year-old park shredders to seasonal ski instructors from Europe, everyone wanted to show that they could put on a great show even in poor snow conditions. And that show was there to see! There was hardly anything you didn't see that day. In addition to technical, fast and above all creative lines, there were also great tricks and spectacular drops on show. Most impressive was a young generation of supposed park kids who won the respect of many established big mountain riders with their creative lines. Some lines, such as a straight line ridden over around 10 meters of rock, were so creative that the experienced judges around Dion Newport had to ponder for a moment how this should be judged. Here's the qualifying result.On the final day, the best 5 women and 15 men from the qualifiers were joined by some of the big names of the freeride scene who had already qualified, such as Nat Segal and Charlie Lyons. Apart from large amounts of fresh snow, the Alta Chutes offered everything you could wish for from a big mountain face. And on the final day too, a number of riders made people sit up and take notice with creative but also brute lines. In the women's competition, Janina quickly made it clear why she has already won this event several times. With a clever, fast line with 3 solidly landed airs, she clearly won the classification. Behind her, Birgit Ertl landed in second place. She chose a line that was largely chosen by the men and, after a technical and big drop, showed fast turns directly in the fall line of the face.
In the men's competition, Charley Lyons chose a fast line across the entire face and finished it off with a wide 3. Above all, the speed and creativity of the line were decisive for the highest score of the day. Hank Bilous came second with a fast and uncompromising line in the fall line that ended with a powerful drop. His descent left his mother, who was cheering along with the rest of the audience, breathless for a moment. His run left no doubt that he has the potential to become one of the next big freeriders from New Zealand. Fraser McDougall came third. He showed a run filled with airs and tricks, in which he supposedly even gave up his last trick as it would have come dangerously close to a photographer. Jossy Wells left little doubt with a very stylish run with two 3s and a backflip that he also has what it takes to be among the world's best in big mountain competitions. When asked about this, he only said that he still has time for it after his freestyle career. At the age of 24, that's not out of the blue.
