Freeride World Tour 2025 - Discussion Thread

Champagne pow

My boy Edvin needs to tighten his dins

WeiTien had 1st on lock if he stuck that last backy

buncha sick runs got thrown off by the chopped up landings and run outs

Have been scrambling around desperately trying to find out where the after party is gonna be held

Random thoughts while watching the comp with coffee this morning:

What a change to go from hardpack to, in some places, neck deep powder.

Carl is my favorite skier. Seems like a chill guy that does his own thing and doesn't care about scores. Can't believe it's been 8 years for him on tour already.

10 years for Trudell. That faceplant was gnarly. Him and Carl are definitely the "old school" freeride guys.

Toby's 360 was insane. A big what-if.

Valle's run was epic. Based on first impression, I don't think Martin's was better, but I can see how it was scored higher for judges.

I liked Finn's line choice of going straight followed by going straight followed by going straight.

Maxime's backflip was nuts. Totally disappeared on landing, plus he traveled like 60ft+ in the air. Totally overshot the landing but still sick.

Tenra would probably be the most fun guy to ski with that's on tour. Really cool flip axis on that second one.

Tom Peiffer is a lunatic. His ski popped off randomly. That's a heartbreaker.

Abel Moga is also a lunatic.

Edvin JUST cleared those rocks. On takeoff I didn't think he was going to make it.

Ross with another big what-if. Would've loved to ski that run clean. If he landed that switch and rode out clean, I'd given him a 100.

Weitien is a dawg. Second 360 was so good. Another massive what-if on that lower backflip.

Goguen does Goguen things. Judges took their time on that score and I don't blame them.

Ben Richards's run was awesome. Criminally underscored in my opinion.

Going to watch the women's comp at some point.

I am very unhappy with the judging today.
Ross, Tenra, and Joan were all criminally underscored. The judges have not been consistent at all with how many points they dock for control issues
Also, it was sad to see Weitien Ho go down. I think he was on track to win the event before he crashed

Did they count Ross's swerved out revert a control issue? Or did they just not see the vision?

SlushSeasonI am very unhappy with the judging today.
Ross, Tenra, and Joan were all criminally underscored. The judges have not been consistent at all with how many points they dock for control issues
Also, it was sad to see Weitien Ho go down. I think he was on track to win the event before he crashed

Carls avy was wild…. Im still watching so dont spoil it.

ok i know line score is important but ben richards run getting 7th is kind of a fucking joke

cyphersok i know line score is important but ben richards run getting 7th is kind of a fucking joke

I think he made it look too easy and it hurt his score. It was such a clean and fluid run where he was in full control the whole time.

If you go back and look at the replay, ever hit he took the deepest or second deepest.

Only one rotation in the line, but no-one else was both as fast and as big.

BallClapperDid they count Ross's swerved out revert a control issue? Or did they just not see the vision?

I think they considered it a control issue because he didn't really ride out switch. Seems like they only respect a trick if you put it to bolts and ride out another 30 feet in the fall line before making any turns.
Even if they judge it as a mistake, it's absurd that they scored Carl Eriksen higher with his uninspired line and no tricks.

I thought Ben Richards was underscored, super smooth line.



Venue had sick spots for sure, but I wish it were like 1.5 times the length of what it was, felt really short with a big traverse in the middle. If everything was the length of fieberbrunn that would be perfect.

I think no one dropping from start 3 should have had a shot at winning, but start number 2 was weird with the long traverse. So, Ben Richards vs Oscar Mandin, similar lines, 80.00 vs 85.00. Ben's was way smoother, but judging wise? Backflip vs 360, backflip scores higher. Backflip vs cross court straight air, backflip scores higher. 3rd hit Ben went larger, but because he went cross court before the set up was easier. Do you count that as good line selection or do you give Mandin the points for the tough turn to set it up? I'd say nod to Ben. 4th hit/section Ben goes straight through going fast but the features he hit were smaller, Martin scores higher by regaining control and hitting a bigger double instead of just pinning it. Ben's my favorite skier on tour but this was a conservative run that will help him make the cut if he has crashes in Georgia and Kicking Horse. He now has the option to go bananas in both of those to try to get podium finishes and a shot at the title.

Also re: Ross. Y'all should rewatch his run. My interpretation is that he had the idea to either do a backflip of that steep rock to secure a good score or, if his run wasn't perfect until then, try to add the 180 with the hope of landing and improving his score based on that. So after the clean first hit he almost falls off a rock getting caught up after a stage 1 backseat off the 3 (that's a control issue already). On the backflip-180 he crashed, that wasn't a swerve revert. His whole body hit the snow and he skied away after saving another near crash. Dude's a maniac and he could easily win it all, but if we start overscoring crashes we'll go back to very different judging criteria than what we've seen over the last 10 years.

Judging was weird either way, Bender should've been docked more for control but I can definitely see him in the top 3. Vale skipped a feature at the bottom, even with the control docking Bender's line was better IMO. Goguen also had two control issues with his ski getting hung up, I woul'dve put him on top without those even if he tricked less than Bender.

It's a shame Weitien crashed, there would be less drama if he had won I think.

Ok rant over
TL;DR: Overall impresion =/= Score

Drone angle Ross posted is making me rethink this all. Idek, too much pow for a freeride comp can't see the landings anymore😭

MedicineI think no one dropping from start 3 should have had a shot at winning, but start number 2 was weird with the long traverse. So, Ben Richards vs Oscar Mandin, similar lines, 80.00 vs 85.00. Ben's was way smoother, but judging wise? Backflip vs 360, backflip scores higher. Backflip vs cross court straight air, backflip scores higher. 3rd hit Ben went larger, but because he went cross court before the set up was easier. Do you count that as good line selection or do you give Mandin the points for the tough turn to set it up? I'd say nod to Ben. 4th hit/section Ben goes straight through going fast but the features he hit were smaller, Martin scores higher by regaining control and hitting a bigger double instead of just pinning it. Ben's my favorite skier on tour but this was a conservative run that will help him make the cut if he has crashes in Georgia and Kicking Horse. He now has the option to go bananas in both of those to try to get podium finishes and a shot at the title.

Also re: Ross. Y'all should rewatch his run. My interpretation is that he had the idea to either do a backflip of that steep rock to secure a good score or, if his run wasn't perfect until then, try to add the 180 with the hope of landing and improving his score based on that. So after the clean first hit he almost falls off a rock getting caught up after a stage 1 backseat off the 3 (that's a control issue already). On the backflip-180 he crashed, that wasn't a swerve revert. His whole body hit the snow and he skied away after saving another near crash. Dude's a maniac and he could easily win it all, but if we start overscoring crashes we'll go back to very different judging criteria than what we've seen over the last 10 years.

Judging was weird either way, Bender should've been docked more for control but I can definitely see him in the top 3. Vale skipped a feature at the bottom, even with the control docking Bender's line was better IMO. Goguen also had two control issues with his ski getting hung up, I woul'dve put him on top without those even if he tricked less than Bender.

It's a shame Weitien crashed, there would be less drama if he had won I think.

Ok rant over
TL;DR: Overall impresion =/= Score

Go watch Ben Richard's POV that he just posted on Instagram. His skis were parallel the entire time and were never more than a couple inches apart. What an animal. Most nonchalant 3 to start it off.

I think a big problem with the last venue was that it wasn't very steep and not really consistent fall-line was available.
Saw so many people fall because the landings weren't steep enough so they just front punched and tomohawk. Also having a silly traverse halfway though that would be 15-20s long was really boring.
From what I saw there would be like 20 seconds of exciting stuff happen at the top then boring traverse then one more hit then another boring traverse.
Also not sure of this but there was that glorious looking feature in the middle that no one seemed to touch (probably ruled out of bounds by safety people).
And I understand avy conditions definetly played a role in what venue was chosen but this was a strange one for a freeride event.
Shame that the skiing was so good but I just didn't enjoy the event much, trying to look past judging inconsistencies because that will always happen in a sport like this, but having a run that was broken into 2 or 3 entirely separate portions was very strange.