Molly Armanino and Marcus Goguen win in Kicking Horse

In Ski Women, the dominating competitors of the first two tour stops—Canada’s Justine Dufour-Lapointe and France’s Astrid Cheylus, both with a win and second place each—were once again demonstrating their class, but both were a bit unlucky. Astrid had a great start of her run with a double drop and another drop off a traverse that nobody else attempted the whole day. Then on the skier’s left side of the venue that featured quite a few small trees, the winner from Val Thorens got a bit lost, and after finally skiing out of that part through a rocky section with good speed, she clipped a ski on a rock and crashed, leaving her on the bottom of the result list. Justine, who had won in Spain, also went on this side of the venue and included her trademark backflip over a windlip right at the beginning. She then went for a big cliff with some trees on top that saw some good action, but also ruined a bunch of runs, and on the entry Justine got stuck with a ski on a small tree just before take-off. Luckily, she kept control, reversed out of the tree and skied a skinny gully in the middle of the cliff section to the finish. Since she didn’t have a fall, Justine still finished fourth on the strength of the rest of her run just in front of Lily Bradley, who skied a similar line and beautifully jumped this very cliff, but missed a trick in her run and slowed down a bit too much through the trees.

The competition as a whole wasn’t short of performances worth mentioning; it’s definitely a good idea to watch the replay if you have some time to spare and want to be entertained. For example, scroll to the run of event wild card skier Parkin Costain. In contrast to what has become consensus on the tour—fluidity is key—he opted to billy-goat the entrance into a steep, rocky section up top that he exited with a huge backflip over a perfect launch-pad cliff, immediately followed by a massive transfer air clearing two cliffs at once. He paid the price for billy-goating, though, since he got stuck a bit in the very rocky part, arguably costing him an even higher score.

Equally impressive was Toby Raffort. He found a creative entry into this steep rock section that he could ski fluently to a different big cliff. The young American threw a huge Lincoln Loop, landed pretty cleanly and went on straight to a spine, where he threw another Lincoln Loop. The second time he came a bit short with his rotation, though, and crashed, prompting his airbag to inflate. After recollecting his skis, he rode down to the bottom with his orange airbag still standing tall.

Meanwhile Ross Tester was carrying on the torch of progression: at the bottom of his run he aired a decent cliff with a 180, landing switch cleanly and continuing to ski backwards until he was out of speed a few meters before the finish line. Unfortunately he had some trouble before. On top of this run near a popular cliff, he went for a drop that other riders avoided due to a flat landing. Ross landed admirably well despite a slight backslap, but then he really ruined his score with a hefty backslap following a backflip over a big cliff further down that he nevertheless could have landed cleanly given the pitch of the landing.

Finally, Mathys Fornasier tried to replicate the famous backflip that Max Hitzig had earned the victory the last time the FWT had a comp on the Ozone face. It’s a huge pyramid shaped cliff that has its own history. Unfortunately, the Frenchman came just a bit short, clipping a ski in the landing for a solid yard-sale crash.

With three out of six stops of this year’s Freeride World Tour in the books, it’s worth having a look at the overall rankings. In a change over the last few seasons, the tour final is this time only consisting of the very final event in Verbier, the classic Xtreme on the Bec des Rosses. Qualification for the final will be based on the best three results for each rider from the five tour stops up until and including Fieberbrunn. The overall tour winner will then be decided based on the best four results out of six events including the tour final. This means that the qualification score for some riders could already be set if the riders don’t improve in either Georgia or Austria. On the other hand, the overall scores now aren’t too meaningful yet, since there are still enough options to completely overhaul your result if you are at the bottom of the list so far. It’s more telling to look how many podium places riders have collected to far; everybody who has gained already two podium finishes is in a really good position.

That said, Justine Dufour-Lapointe has taken the sole lead overall in Ski Women, since she got the better result in Kicking Horse than Astrid Cheylus; before both were equal. Since it’s not unlikely, though, that both will have better results than Justine’s fourth place in Canada, it’s still up in the air who will go to Verbier as the tour leader—it’s just very likely it will be one of the two. In third place is now Molly Armanino based on her win in Canada, and Lena Kohler is sitting strong in fourth with two podium finishes so far, the only other rider besides the two leaders to have achieved that.

In the Ski Men’s overall ranking, Valentin Rainer has the lead based on a very consistent performance with a second place and two fourth place finishes. It’s hard to imagine that he will not make the cut. Second now is Marcus Goguen with two podium finishes, a first and a third place. He is therefore in the best position to attack the top spot since it will be rather easy for him to improve his result from Spain, where he finished fourteenth. The only other rider so far with two podium finishes is Ben Richards, who got third twice. All other riders among the top 8 overall have one podium finish this season besides Virgile Didier, who sits in sixth position overall based on a constant performance. That’s even more impressive since he is a rookie on the FWT—however, this also makes him the most likely to be surpassed by enough other riders that he might still miss the cut.