It’s that time of the year. The valleys are welcoming spring, the snow cover up high consolidates and real big mountain faces get in condition. That’s when the Freeride World Tour enters its final stage. Since a few years now, this final stage isn’t just the grand final at the Bec des Rosses in Verbier, but it also includes the traditional face-off at Fieberbrunn’s Wildseeloder. The cut was made following the show-down in Georgia and the top-ranked riders are currently on their way to Austria, where the Fieberbrunn Pro is about to go down later this week. We give you the breakdown of the situation before the finals and an outlook to what’s going to happen over the next three weeks.
The imposing competition face at Fieberbrunn’s Wildseeloder
Jeremy Bernard/Freeride World Tour
Event News
HighlightExpect an epic fight
Preview to the Freeride World Tour Finals
The Skicircus Saalbach-Hinterglemm-Leogang-Fieberbrunn looks forward to an exciting time: The Alpine World Cup finals are about to start this weekend at the Zwölferkogel in Hinterglemm and—of course more importantly—the FWT Finals are about to start at the Wildseeloder in Fieberbrunn. After all, both events are FIS sanctioned nowadays and it’d actually be a great opportunity to experience the full scope of the FIS universe first hand in one place. However, we’re gonna focus on the—in our humble opinion—more exciting and authentic aspect of skiing which is of course the sphere of competitive freeriding.
Oscar Mandin drops into the Wildseeloder face during the Fieberbrunn Pro 2023.
Jeremy Bernard/Freeride World Tour
The Freeride World Tour Finals currently consist of the events Fieberbrunn Pro and Xtreme Verbier. Only a reduced field of the six top ranked female skiers and eleven top ranked male skiers—alongside a cast of men and women on snowboards—have made the cut following the first three events of the season in Verbier—as replacement for the events in Spain and Andorra which had to be cancelled due to a bad start of the winter in the Pyrenees—, Kicking Horse/CAN and Georgia. The weather window for the first event of the finals, the Fieberbrunn Pro, starts already tomorrow (Tuesday March 12) but due to inclement weather the competition is not going to happen before Thursday. We will keep you posted on the exact date in our news section.
To decide about the cut for the finals, the best two results of the first three events counted, but the third results isn’t necessarily going to be dropped in the overall rankings, since the FWT tour winner is going to be decided based on the best four results of all five events of the season, given that the two final events will happen. It’s not that easy to forecast any final results, though, since the ranking system at the FWT is slightly complicated. For example, while a win at one of the first three events of the winter was awarded 10,000 points, a victory in either Fieberbrunn or Verbier is going to accumulate 12,000 points. Of course, the rest of the point split across the results is adjusted accordingly for the final two events.
The ski women’s field is wide open. Manon Loschi currently holds the top spot based on two second place finishes, but Hedvig Wessel is hot on her heels with a second and a third place and this season’s contest winners Astrid Cheylus, Zuzanna Witych and Sybille Blanjean are closely behind. Even Lily Bradley, who is currently in sixth position overall, still has a good shot at the FWT title since none of the six finalists has collected more than two top results yet.
It’s a slightly different situation in the ski men’s. Max Hitzig sits comfortably at the top with two season wins so far and a third place finish in reserve. The closest competitor at the moment is newcomer Marcus Goguen with a win and a third place, but he is missing a solid third result. That means that even though the final events contribute 20% more points to the overall standing, Max Hitzig could claim the overall title in Fieberbrunn already if his closest competitors—next to Marcus Goguen these are former tour champion Kristofer Turdell and Japanese sensation Tenra Katsuno—miss the podium and Max adds another win to his accolade. However, in case Max follows the example of all his fellow skiers this season and collects a throw-away result in Fieberbrunn, the fight for the overall title will be fiercely contested since no other skier has gathered more than two solid results in this season so far.
Marcus Goguen showed his talent in Fieberbrunn already in 2023.
Jeremy Bernard/Freeride World Tour
The contest face in Fieberbrunn is well worth a tour final event with almost 600 vertical meters, a big choice of cliff bands, gnarly terrain features, rollers for floaty airs and a channel gap that has seen mind-blowing transfers in the past. The scheduled best-of-two-runs format would add another flavor to the FWT, but due to the forecasted mild temperatures in the coming week a change of plans is not unlikely. Forecasts for Tuesday and Wednesday hint to a very welcome refreshment for the snow pack and Thursday might offer enough sunny spells to hold the competition. Stay tuned! In the meantime, you could test your freeride expertise over at the Peak Performance Funbet or collect a few turns for yourself. All further information about riders, rankings and events are always available at the official FWT website where you will also have access to the comfortable event live stream including results and replay function; or you can simply watch the livestream here:
