WX Europe Competition Schedule

Credit: C. VAN HANJA/Shazamm/ESPN Images

Thursday, March 11
1:30 – 3:00 pm   / Snowboard Slopestyle Men’s Final with Travis Rice
4:30 – 5:30 pm  / Snowboard Superpipe Women’s Final with Torah Bright and Kjersti Buaas
6:30 – 8:00 pm  / Snowboard Superpipe Men’s Qualifications with Freddie Austbo, Mathieu Crepel and Markku Koski


Friday, March 12
9:30 – 10:30 am  / Ski Slopestyle Women’s Final with Sarah Burke and Lena Stoffel
11:30 – 12: 30 pm  / Snowboard Slopestyle Women’s Final with Silje Norendal and Kjersti Buaas
4:00 – 5:00 pm  / Ski Superpipe Women’s Final with Sarah Burke 
6:00 – 7:30 pm  / Snowboard Superpipe Men’s Final -

French Freestyle Star Candide Thovex gets 2nd At the Second Stage of the Freeride World Tour

Chamonix again provided the thrills of freeride, hosting the second stage of the Freeride Tour: the Nissan Russian Adventure by Swatch, initially planned to take place in Sochi/Russia, but moved to Chamonix for security reasons and difficult weather conditions. Only the men skiers and snowboarders took part of today’s contest, at the north east face of Aiguille Pourrie at the Flégère ski area. With an extremely high performance level, Frenchmen Julien Lopez and Xavier de Le Rue took victory. The multiple X-Games medallist skier Candide Thovex FRA and snowboarder Mitch Toelderer AUT are now at the top of the Freeride World Tour Ranking.

Chamonix again provided the thrills of freeride, hosting the second stage of the Freeride Tour: the Nissan Russian Adventure by Swatch, initially planned to take place in Sochi/Russia, but moved to Chamonix for security reasons and difficult weather conditions. Only the men skiers and snowboarders took part of today’s contest, at the north east face of Aiguille Pourrie at the Flégère ski area. With an extremely high performance level, Candide Thovex finished second and Frenchmen Julien Lopez took victory.

The multiple X-Games medallist skier Candide Thovex is now at the top of the Freeride World Tour Ranking. Once again Candide showed us a very playful line, bouncing down the mountain. He took a more obvious line than Lopez and did not take the highest jumps but he was super fluid and executed all his airs with more speed and landed further down than the other competitors. In the end of the run he pulled off a perfect 360° (a complete rotation), taking about 20 metres of distance in the air, really spectacular!

JAMES STENTIFORD WINS 3RD PLACE AT THE WORLD FREERIDE TOUR, CHAMONIX

JAMES STENTIFORD COMES 3RD AT THE SNOWBOARD WORLD FREERIDE TOUR, CHAMONIX 2010.

Congratulations to Quiksilver Team Manager and Pro Snowboarder, James Stentiford, who came 3rd at the World Freeride Tour this year at Chamonix.  James decided to enter the contest on a whim.  He needed something to do that day...

"After two years of not competing I thought I should have another crack as the World Freeride Tour was coming to my home resort of Chamonix. As luck would have it they offered me a wild card into the event. Conditions were pretty perfect on the day, a load of new snow, beautiful sunshine and very cold. I felt pretty relaxed about it all until we heard on the radio that a skier had crashed and hurt himself.  After an hour delay in the freezing cold it was finally time for my run.  I was pretty happy with my run even though it didn't work out exactly as I planned due to the changing snow conditions.  I managed to stay pretty fluid and do a backside three, a stalefish over a natural hip and then hit a medium sized cliff at the bottom.  I didn't hang around to watch the other riders as the snow conditions were so good so didn't really have an idea of how I'd done.  So I was pretty stoked when they announced the result.

I've now been invited to the next event which is being held this Thursday. I guess I'll have to put off retirement for another year!"

French Freestyle Star Candide Thovex takes victory at his first FWT contest

Copyright: Nissan Freeride Chamonix Mont Blanc 2010 D Carlier

Against the beautiful backdrop of the Mont-Blanc, French Freestyle icon Candide Thovex took his first win in a Freeride World Tour event in Chamonix on 31st of January.

The 50 best freeriders on the planet put on an amazing performance in perfect weather conditions on the 500 metre “Pentes de l’Hôtel” face at the Brévent ski area in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, despite challenging snow conditions.

The most impressive run of the day was the clean victory of French freestyle legend Candide Thovex, debuting in freeride contests, announcing a promising future. After the last few days’ of snowfall the blue skies finally presented a dream like arena for the athletes and spectators of the Freeride de Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. However, the snow conditions where tricky for the competitors. A lot of the fresh powder was taken down by the first riders and parts of the face exposed rock hard snow, and at times ice. Control was decisive.

Event winner was the famous French freestyler Candide Thovex’s first Freeride World Tour contest, and with his explosive run he secured a solid victory. Thovex chose a unique line down the face, literally flying through the course at full speed, stomping several solid cliff jumps, cheered on by the excited Chamonix spectator crowd. Swedish Kaj Zackrisson is one of the veterans on the tour, and a Chamonix local since 10 years.

“I couldn’t sleep very well last night as I wasn’t really sure of my line, and I felt a lot of pressure this morning. But I went up early and got a good vision of the course. I looked for good snow and a line I could enjoy. I spotted some nice Alaska-like spines with great snow! I chose not to do some tricks and to focus on fluidity. I wanted to come down safe and sound. It has been really cool and the atmosphere is great, which was very motivating at the start. I am really happy of the victory and to share the podium with my friend Tim Dutton who soon will be at his home town in Squaw Valley. I am really motivated for the coming events!” Candide Thovex said.

2 weeks after an amazing win at Reb Bull Linecatcher in Vars (Freestyle/freeride mix event), and several years after his last contests, Candide Thovex is definitely back to business. Watch out.

JAMIE NICHOLLS GETS RESULTS AT THE BEO!

Jamie Nicholls is going from strength to strength during his first full season competing on the TTR circuit.  After making the finals at the O'Neill Evolutions six star event in Davos on a very challenging couse Jamie backed that up with a 13th place at the premier European event of the season; The Burton European Open.  To pu this achievement in perspective Jamie had to come through two rounds of qualifications just to get into the semi finals, competing against 119 other riders.  Here the 32 invited riders joined the competition.  Jamie qualified 10th for the final beating fellow Quiksilver rider and Olympic bronze medalist Markku Koski.  The standard in the finals was rediculous with 10s and 12s and double corks going down, the top 10 riders all scored in the 80's out off 100 which as a TTR judge I can tell you is unusual.  Check out Jamie's semi final runs below.  It's only a matter of time before we see him on the podium!