Bec des Rosses

Liam Rivera shows mental strength, but is not fully rewarded for it. Victor de Le Rue crashes, but still takes home the victory. The men's skiers show an incredible level with five riders above the 90-point mark. Mia Jones dominates the field of female snowboarders and takes a start-to-finish victory as a rookie. In the women's skiing, on the other hand, everything is shaken up once again.

The season is coming to an end. Go out again and put your head in the snow! I've put together a few moving images to get us in the mood and round off the season, first and foremost a film about a skier with Down's syndrome, but also with well-known heroes.

Amidst the haze of the Freeride World Tour stop in Georgia during the first weekend of March, PowderGuide had the opportunity to sit down with Valentin Rainer, the 2023 men’s tour champion and a competitor in this year’s season. The 26-year-old Austrian rider shares an inside look at his life, both before and during the season, and opens up about his plans for the future. It’s an exciting glimpse into the world of a professional freerider, someone who relentlessly chases goals driven by intrinsic motivation and the pure joy of the sport.

With breathtaking lines peppered with courageous tricks and unforgettable moments, the YETI Xtreme Verbier by Honda once again showed why it is considered the ultimate stop on the tour.

The dream comes true: Valentin Rainer wins the Freeride World Tour, together with Justine Dufour-Lapointe, Ludovic Guillot-Diat and Katie Anderson! After the crazy March weather had already caused a stir at the first part of the finals in Fieberbrunn, the Verbier Xtreme had to be canceled due to safety concerns. This is a bitter-sweet end to the FWT23. We sorely miss the showdown on the Bec des Rosses, and yet this is a strong sign: safety has top priority.

The VdW need content and that's what vloggers and the contest scene aka the Freeride World Tour provide us with on a regular basis. Today we feature the comebacks of Sage Cattabriga-Alosa as a vlogger and Ariana Tricomi at the FWT. Have fun!

In any case, the high pressure is over for now and we're in for a cold snap in the next few days, hopefully with more than just cosmetic snowfall. And yes, the Alps urgently need snow! The upcoming FWT finals in Fieberbrunn and Verbier could use it, as could all of us, and finally northern Italy, which is already fearing the next summer drought. We can find reason for hope further above us, in the stratosphere.

There are freeriders, not only you and me from the German speaking parts of the Alps, but also Japanese freeriders, like Yu Sasaki. He is familiar to us from FWT competitions. I watched Kicking Horse and Yu's run i.m.h.o. would have been the winning line if he hadn't screwed up the drop from the wind lip on top of the face, which was penalized by the judges. ContestHappening didn't mention his run, thus, in order to let justice and mercy prevail, we honor Yu's great line and big drop here!

Children and young people are still heavily underrepresented in the Videos of the Week. We would like to counteract this. This is an episode with overly cute children and their overly proud fathers, and with incomprehensibly good young skiers.

Freeride World Tour: Marion Haerty, Arianna Tricomi, Markus Eder and Victor De Le Rue crowned Tour winners! Elisabeth Gerritzen, Marion Haerty, Wadeck Gorak and Jonathan Penfield took the day's victory at the Xtreme Verbier.

The winners of the 2018 Freeride World Tour (FWT) have been announced. At the Xtreme Verbier on the relatively snow-covered Bec des Rosses in Valais, Manuela Mandl (AUT) from Vienna came third and thus won the women's snowboard tour. Victory in Verbier went to Marion Haerty (FRA). The snowboarder winner was Sammy Luebke (USA), who also came first in the overall standings for the third time in a row.

With the last ContestHappening for the 2016/17 season, we take another brief look at the FWT Final in Verbier and the winners of the overall FWT ranking, and take a look at who has won the qualifier categories and qualified for next year's tour. Finally, it's all about the Open Faces final event in Gastein! I'd like to thank the readers, am open to criticism and would like nothing more than snowier winters and safer conditions at the competitions in the future. Then reporting would be more fun than constantly writing about difficulties and bad snow conditions...