Competititition

Photo: Chill

The last 4 weeks have been pretty epic for me. It was the peak comp season with four Freeride World Qualifier(FWQ) events of which I did three.

A whole bunch of travelling and competing, and a few awesome days skiing has made for a pretty top month.

I started out with the Chill Series big mountain up in Canterbury, a 2 star event.

This year the comp ran as a 4 day, 2 venue, 3 best places count format.

So it sort of ended up being a bit of an endurance comp.

The standard of skiing was really high this year, with a good bunch of Euros competing and a handful of the Kiwi kids throwing down mad stunts (Charlie Lyons cork 3 eat your heart out).

I had 3 solid days with two 4ths and a 2nd, which put me into 2nd place overall.

A good way to start the season!

Here are the official edits from Chill: Mt Olympus Day 1 and 2  and Craigieburn Day 1 and 2

After a mind blowing drive home down the West Coast, it was time for the NZ Open big mountain, a 3 star event.

I was pre qualified into the finals day, which took a bit of stress out of the comp seeing as I only needed to throw down on one day.

The finals was meant to be a 2 run, but due to the weather it was capped at 1 run.

I managed to put together a fast clean run with a few nuggets and one big drop and earned myself 4th place, with only .03 points between me and Charlie Lyons (3rd).

A result I am stoked with!

I competed on a pair of 190cm Head Bonecrushers, good for going fast and dropping big rocks!

The official edit from The Open: NZ Open Finals

Photo: Malcolm Pullman

Another epic mission later and I’m in National Park, waiting for the clouds to clear for the Ruapehu Xtremes at Whakapapa, another 3 star.

After days of waiting for the weather to roll out, we finally got a window and day one went ahead.

The Xtremes lived up to its rep of having the iciest venue in New Zealand (and probably the world) by hardening the hell out of LegoLand (day one venue).

Photo Credit: Malcolm Pullman

I had two really fast, solid runs on day one which put me at the top of the pile. I did the comp the REV 105, a nice stiff ski with lots of carve. New favourite comp ski.

In the end the comp became a one day comp, down from 3 days, with day 2 and 3 being cancelled mainly due to bad the extremely icy conditions on the venues.

So I finished up in 1st spot over all.

A very happy day!

The official edit from the comp: Ruapehu Xtremes

After the four New Zealand events I will be leading the Freeride World Qualifier (FWQ) rankings for the Europe/Africa/Asia/Oceania region.  Best three results for the May 1 to April 30 year count so with the northern hemisphere comps to go, and they include some higher point scoring 4 star events, it’s early days. 

There were about 20 European and US competitors here for the New Zealand comps and 8 of last year’s FWQ top 20, including me and Charlie Lyons were in the fields so the standard was pretty high.

If I can end up top 10 at year end I will be very happy.

I will be doing the Canadian and US events which are now part of a unified world tour.  You can get points from anywhere but they count in your region for overall standings.  The Americas is a separate region. Top four from each region go through to the Freeride World Tour of about 20 elite riders including NZs own Mr Sam Smoothy and Mr Charlie Lyons.