What outsiders might call a rash of fatalities could simply be a result of competitive freeskiing’s popularity. Almost unanimously, athletes and organizers claim big-mountain competitions are safer than they’ve ever been, thanks in part to the judges’ preference for calculated, smaller airs (often executed, however, while inverted or spinning to score style points) rather than flailing 60-footers. “It’s no longer a stunt man’s sport,” says Griffin Post, who competed in North America and Europe for five years before being invited to film with Teton Gravity Research last season.
Though a variety of resorts around the world host big-mountain competitions, two tours dominate the scene: the 15-year-old Freeskiing World Tour and the five-year-old Freeride World Tour. Both are confusingly abbreviated “FWT,” but otherwise they share few core traits. The freeskiing tour is open to anyone with $150 to spend on registration (fields often reach 140 skiers), offers an equal $5,000 purse to male and female winners, and broadcasts its events live on the internet. The freeride tour, meanwhile, requires an invitation to compete (at no charge to the athletes), caps its fields at 24 men and 10 women (women are included only at certain stops), pays nearly twice as much money to male winners (up to $10,000 last year), and guarantees its sponsors and athletes visibility on major television networks throughout Europe.
Still, some of the world’s best big-mountain skiers, the ones you see in each season’s marquee films, compete sparingly or not at all. They don’t need to. What is most telling is that the sport has flourished in their absence. “If you want to make a name for yourself in the ski industry, yeah, you can take as many photos and shoot as much video with your friends as you want,” Post says. “But if you go out and win a contest, that’s pretty objective.”
CATCH A COMP
Freeskiing World Tour Stops
> Las Leñas, Argentina
> Valle El Arpa, Chile
> Revelstoke, British Columbia
> Jackson Hole, Wyoming
> Crested Butte, Colorado
> Kirkwood, California
> Snowbird, Utah
freeskiingworldtour.com
Freeride World Tour Stops
> Chamonix, France
> St. Moritz, Switzerland
> Crystal Mountain, Washington
