A festival of send: Tiemo Rolshoven and Mila De Le Rue win the 2025 Nendaz Backcountry Invitational

Sunday, the 12th of January dawned cloudless and crispy cold on a sight fit to warm the heart of any skier: a playful off-piste face on Nendaz’s Plan du Fou littered with hand-built kickers, cliff step-downs, and yes, a rail for good measure. Event staff and riders caught an early gondola up to the venue, and as the sun crested the ridge and spilled light down the face, it was clear that another memorable day of skiing was upon us.

The action began even before the contest started when forerunner Fynn Powell lit up the face with an electrifying run consisting of first-hit stomp after first-hit stomp. Laying out a huge double backflip into a cork 720 into a 360, all landed clean as a whistle, Fynn’s run might have won an earlier edition of the BC Invitational. This year, though, it was only a teaser of what was to come.

Double trouble in the women’s field

The women’s field featured six riders, a big step up from previous editions where only a few women dropped in. Event veterans Astrid Cheylus and Lou Barin were joined by Verbier local Eva Battola and up-and-coming freerider Mila De Le Rue. Two Swiss freestylers—Amélie Bigler from Leysin and Nour El Khazen from Chexbres—also stepped up to the challenge of their first freeride contest.

After a clean first run featuring two backflips and polished freeride skiing, Astrid Cheylus landed what’s probably the first double backflip by a woman in a contest of this kind. Her stomp sent a roar through the crowd and vaulted her into the lead, setting up last year’s Freeride World Tour second-place overall finisher for a win here in Nendaz.

Then Mila De Le Rue entered the chat. On her third run, the 19-year-old with the famous last name landed a 360, then a double backflip of her own. It was enough to edge Astrid off the top of the scoreboard, giving Mila a memorable victory just a week out from her Freeride World Tour debut.

Third place went to Eva Battolla, who put down three impressive runs with big drops, backflips and flatspin 360s matched by strong freeride chops, but whose performance was overshadowed on this day by the double flips of her podium companions. Lou Barin put her air skills on display with nice 360 tail grabs and a 720 tail, good enough for fourth place, while the two Swiss freestylers Amélie and Nour struggled in vain to land their tricks into the chopped-up powder landings.

An Arlberg sweep in the men’s field

A field of 12 riders, a majority of them new to the unique challenge of the BC Invitational, made up the men’s category. Although everyone in the men’s field enjoyed a memorable stomp at one time or another throughout their three runs, the contest quickly turned into a showdown between Tiemo Rolshoven and Jake Müller, two up-and-coming riders out of Austria’s Arlberg region.

Tiemo had drawn the first drop for Run 1, and quickly supercharged the contest with huge, composed 360s in the top section before banging out a double backflip and cork 720 on the lower jumps. But he was soon upstaged by his buddy Jake, who blasted a huge backflip off the top cliff drop into a flawlessly stomped double cork 1080.

This was the first of many highlights to come. I’ve watched many riders try to land double corks in Nendaz over the years, and almost all of them fail. It’s no easy business stomping a dub 10 into a powder landing, much less in a contest on your first hit—but that’s exactly what Jake did.

Not content in second place, Tiemo answered with another huge run on his second try, linking big backflips off natural takeoffs into a flawless double cork 10 of his own. That’s 2 for 2 on the day for dub 10s, a stat that probably won’t be topped anytime soon.

The showdown culminated in Jake’s third run, when the fearless 19-year-old blasted out a logic-defying triple backflip on one of the venue’s top jumps. He flew what felt like halfway down the face before somehow stomping it bolts, an incredible feat that only 19-year-old knees can probably achieve. “That was the best moment of my life,” Jake gasped as he was swarmed by the rest of the riders in in the finish zone.

Even so, it wasn’t quite enough to beat Tiemo, who went 3-for-3 on his runs a format that rewarded the overall impression over the best run. Jake took second instead. He was followed by yet another Arlberg rider, Sebi Mall. Sebi had stepped off a plane from Japan the night before the contest, and his experienced talent for freestyle in natural terrain delivered some of the day’s most aesthetic runs.

Beyond the podium, several other riders’ runs stood out. Jordane Legal, better known as @74_jordy on Instagram, blessed the day’s proceedings with his very unique approach to skiing, which on this day included massive double front flips and even a triple front flip attempt. Not to mention his audacious front flip over the sponsor tent at the bottom of the course. What can I say? The man likes his front flips.

Nendaz veteran Alex Hackel showed off his backcountry-booter experience with clean cork 7s and backflips, while flouting his park skills on the rail feature—good enough for fourth place. He also took a mean crash on his second run, chest-planting into a takeoff after catching his ski in the transition. It was one of the day’s most painful-looking crashes, one we were glad to see him ski away from.

Speaking of veterans and crashes, French freeride star Léo Slemett was looking on point with a big first run, but he crashed on a rodeo 7 on his second go, tweaking his knee and ending his day. Fingers crossed that it’s nothing major.

A big shoutout as well to the rest of the field, with big double flips from Mikkel Brandt and Maé Biedermann, great cliff-drop 360s from Lukas Bennett and Mathys Fornasier, and a wild nose-butter cork 10 from Jordan Ray. With huge hand-drag 360s and a massively stomped double backflip of his own, Lach Powell could have threatened the podium, if he’d been able to put it all together in a clean run.

The Nendaz special sauce

There’s something unique about the Nendaz Backcountry Invitational that makes it such a consistently memorable event. First off, there’s the huge weather window—maybe the longest in skiing—that lasts all of January. This big window allows for the best possible conditions for the event to take place, a prerequisite for any successful backcountry booter session.

However, this window also means that riders have to be ready on a five-day notice to head to Nendaz, a requirement that doesn’t always jive well with the busy January schedules of the pros. A number of big names were absent at this year’s event—Ari Tricomi, Markus Eder, Maxime Chabloz—but in the end, that just freed up more space for other riders to shine.

Last but not least, the Backcountry Invitational couldn’t happen without the enthusiastic, mostly volunteer team at Nendaz Freeride, the organization that produces a whole string of freeride events throughout the season from 1-stars to Challengers. From shapers to cameramen to starters to editors to livestream producers, the local freeride scene brings an infectious level of stoke to the event, a vibe that seems to help the riders perform at their best. That was certainly the case this year.