Stop two of the Freeride World Tour (FWT) 2024 in Kicking Horse Golden is ready to fire, green light for competition to go down on Friday, February 15. Cold temperatures are keeping the snow in primo condition, ahead of blue skies to greet competitors on comp day, providing athletes with promising conditions to deliver an explosive North American leg.
After an epic start to the 2024 season in Verbier, Switzerland, FWT by Peak Performance heads across the Atlantic for the legendary Kicking Horse Golden BC Pro. This is the seventh time a FWT event has been held at this resort, with the Ozone Face providing one of the most challenging venues on tour, offering varied terrain and huge features to suit all riders.
Thursday’s competition will take place on T1 South – which held the event in 2022 – owing to sub-standard conditions on the Ozone Face. The top section of the Ozone is fine, but the middle section has an inconsistent snowpack – from a thick crust to deep, sugary snow over rock – while the bottom is littered with ice cookies the size of watermelons. Hardly ideal for freeride competition. In contrast, T1 South has a consistent snowpack with up to 20 cm of snow covering the old firm crust – including around 5 cm of fresh snow on Tuesday – with cold temperatures ensuring conditions will be suitable for the world’s best freeriders.
This year, the forerunner will be Jay Rawe, the first sit-skier in FWT history to participate in proceedings. Jay got into sit-skiing after a BASE jumping accident in which he was lucky to survive. Sit-skiing allowed him to follow his passion for the outdoors and charging hard with friends in the mountains. His resume in this discipline is quite impressive, pioneering 540 and 720 spins, as well as featuring in Stomping Grounds by Matchstick Productions and earning an invite to the 2023 Swatch Nines.
Live Coverage starts at 10.15 am MST – 6.15 pm CET, with the first rider dropping at 10.30 am MST – 6.30 pm CET. The order will be:
· Snowboard Women
· Snowboard Men
· Ski Women
· Ski Men
The Freeride World Tour (FWT) is the premier big mountain freeskiing and snowboarding tour in the world, featuring the sport’s top athletes competing in the world’s best mountain resorts. Created in 2008, the FWT became even more global in 2012 following the union of the North American-based Freeskiing World Tour, The North Face Masters of Snowboarding, and the European-based Swatch Freeride World Tour.
FWT Management SA, based in Verbier-Switzerland, has been organizing world-class sports events in mountain resorts and regions since 1996. Founder of “Verbier Xtreme”, an iconic event in freeride skiing & snowboarding, FWT Management SA, has taken in 2008 this stand-alone event to create several series of international freeride competitions totaling over 200 events around the globe for professional, amateur, and junior riders and 6,000 licensed riders.
FWT Management SA is the organizer of the following Series: Freeride World Tour (FWT), Challenger, Qualifier, and Junior events taking place in Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Oceania.
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