FWT is wide open
Tuesday March 2, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

The 3rd leg of the Freeride World Tour has been held in Squaw Valley, USA. It was delayed and moved to a different mountain, but it was still quite a competition. No one rider has really dominated this year.

In the end it took place at the Silverado venue rather than The Tram Face and the competitors had 2 runs instead of 1.

The face wasn't as steep but it perhaps allowed for better tricks.

With its playful terrain the riders put up a great display for the hundreds of cheering spectators.

The men's winner was Henrik Windstedt, from Sweden.

Photo c/o Freeride World Tour"The format 'best of two runs' was really great and very interesting. The riders were pushing the limits even further with two chances on the same face," said Windstedt after the event.

"Silverado is a great competition venue, not too dangerous, so we dare to go for it! I was really excited at the start and wanted to go as big as I could. I am really happy I stomped my backflip and 360 as well as the big cliff jump at the bottom."

Windstedt won the FWT in 2008.

Three out of the four winners (Windstedt, de Le Rue, Paaso) have scored enough points to climb to the top of the leader board.

Perhaps the high point of the day was the women stepping up the game with a great level of riding, taking the same big cliff jumps as the men and creative line choices.

Local Squaw Valley skier, and Freeride World Tour wild card, Jaclyn Paaso was without a doubt the biggest crowd pleaser.

She took a massive cliff jump at the bottom of the face, faster and higher than most of the men, challenging them for the second heat.

Look at video below for her huge jump. Wow!

The FWT hasn't had much luck this year with the weather.

The Russian leg was postponed and could not be held in Sochi as the weather closed in and it was judged unsafe to hold the competition. The competitors waited 10 days for a break in the weather, but it never happened.

The men's stage was then held in Chamonix and the women's in Austria instead.

The official Chamonix leg was relatively trouble free though it was delayed by a day because of the weather.

Now the 3^rd leg in Squaw Valley was unable to be held on the notorious Tram Face slope as it was deemed unsafe for competition and the event was moved to Silverado.

To be fair the Freeride World Tour never promises to be on an exact day or mountain face as big mountain freeriding is by definition difficult.

It needs the correct weather and snow can not be bought in by lorry and helicopter like at the recent Vancouver Olympics.

The final leg takes place in Verbier and is scheduled for March 20^th on the notorious Bec des Rosses.

PlanetSKI reporter, Guy Ordway, will be covering the event for us. Let's hope the weather holds out as it promises to be quite an event.

Here's a video of last year's event.

We will be bringing ou some videos of the winning runs later so do check back for them.

Photo c/o Freeride World Tour