The final FWQ competition in Switzerland for this year took place on March 13-14th 2015 in the charming village of Nendaz, surrounded by the impressive mountains of the valais. When it comes to FWQs in the western part of the alps, Nico Goez is our rider on site. Here is his short wrap of one of the major 4* FWQ Events in the alps.
The Base
Nendaz is situated in the center of the "4 Vallées" ski region with the other resorts Veysonnaz and Thyon in the east and La Tzoumaz, Verbier and Bruson in the west. Beneath being a really nice little mountain village, based on an elevated plain over the city of Sion in the Rhone valley, Nendaz is trying to keep its originality for real, even with increasing numbers of ski tourists and freeriders each year. The competition faces on "La Maretze" for the qualification and the "Mont Gond" for the final had still really good snow conditions, even with two weeks of increasing temperatures and no snowfall. Explanations could be the mainly north facing descends and high altitudes of around 2500 meters.
The Contest
Day 1: First riders meeting for the 9th edition of the Nendaz Freeride was Saturday morning around 8 o' clock in the restaurant of Tracouet mountain station. Focusses were topics like the snow base and security on the mountain presented by head organizer Cyril Lanfranchi and the judging system, which was explained by head judge Florian Bühler. Once again, the main criteria are: "Line, Technique, Air and Style, Speed/Fluidity and Control". After that we had time to Face check the quali run on "La Maretze": It is a beautiful mountain face with plenty of options and the weather was perfect for the day! Have a look:
Soon after, the first riders already had to hike up the mountain. But especially the later starting girls had some more time to explore the mountains by themselves or watch some runs. I had my (unsatisfying) run quite early and could watch a lot of riders after my descend. It was already a big show and sitting there with friends and locals of the region was really nice. Overall a great atmosphere that first day and after watching the comp, there was still some time to ride with old and new friends. In the evening the riders for the final were drawn during "Bib Draw Ceremony" in the Cactus Saloon. Later the party over there was still going on a while... Action Fotos Qualification: Day 2: The riders, which had been taken for the final had to get up early and head over Siviez to the Plan du Fou mountain restaurant, while others could take it a bit more easy or even watch the show on a perfectly working lifestream over the internet. Snowboarders opened up the Face: Of course I was also crossing fingers for the locals like Gilles Nevens. Florian Fournier or another friend Tommaso Gazzini. But better luck had other riders on that day. In general it was some really high level of riding with big cliff drops, really nice lines and a couple of freestyle tricks. The best luck and the nicest line on the day was made by the German rider Johannes Schnitzer. Skiers were comming down next: The show was amazing! Once again, some of the lines were even getting more extreme: bigger cliff drops in some cases even combined with backfips were the trademarks for this category. But some others like the local Florent Leu or the french Loic Burri kept it more the old school way and showed some really nice lines and nice technical skiing, combined with medium sized cliffdrops. So it was a nice mix of different styles and line choices again! The girls finished the competition and were showing nice lines too. The Italian ski girl Arianna Tricomi stomped a big 360°, showing that you have some damn good freestyle action in the girls ski category as well. Also snowbard girls like the russian Anna Orlova stomped some nice cliffs. Here are all the results. Congratulations to all the winners!
Contest Highlights Video
Contest Summary Video
Conclusion
The organizers of the (non profit) Nendaz Freeride 2015 event did a great job again and everything worked out really well. Besides that, all the people at the Nendaz Freeride seemed to have a really good time, too. It's always a friendly atmosphere around night and daytime, so it's preset that you will get a whole bunch of new shredding contests, and on the other hand you meet a lot of old friends from earlier competitions. So, it's pretty much damn cool overall!
Outlook
Well next year 10th edition!!! I guess it's gonna be a highlight in the FWQ tour as always. Good luck the organizers for the upcoming competition anyway! ;) But in between we're enjoying lots of good freeriding days in the region. Oh yeah! Let it snow, let it snow... ;) Stay tuned! Cheers, Niko Goez
