The Remarkables hosted the North Face Frontier today in the famous Alta Chutes. The conditions were perfect with fresh snow overnight and sunshine for most of the day. The Alta chutes are consistently steep and offer many options for both skiers and snowboarders. There are the classic slightly wider Elevator and Escalator chutes with lots of rockier and narrower areas in between. The top riders made full use of the venue linking airs the whole way down.
The tops scorers today showed good technical skiing and snowboarding with no mistakes. The judges have been getting tougher and tougher with any small fault costing the riders big points.
This was especially clear in the men’s ski category, the tops three athletes demonstrated good clean skiing in difficult exposed areas.
Sam Lee was the top male skier with fast fluid skiing, especially on the top part of the venue. Sam has already qualified for next year’s Freeride World Tour and a 4* win is already setting him up for success. Konstantin Ottner did a huge super clean backflip to earn him second place. Andrew Wylie, another kiwi placed 3rd again with fast fluid skiing and solid landings on all of his airs.
In the female ski Elizabeth Geritzen from Switzerland took out first place. She skied a similar line to several other girls but at high speed which set her apart. Laia Plaza-Castellenarau placed second with an aggressive and creative line. Third place went to kiwi Jess Hottner who was especially stoked to have put down the line she planned on.
Snowboarders found the venue a little tricky today and again it was good clean riding, not necessarily big airs that won the day. First in men’s snowboarding was Rupert Smith from New Zealand, second was American Stephan Denmark and in third place Sergi Diaz from Spain.
Long-time competitor Tess Carney made snowboarding over a waterfall look easy winning her category convincingly. Behind her was kiwi Genevieve King who won the 2* on Monday and in third place was Michaela Davis-Meehan from Australia.
Despite several delays over the week today’s event ran very well. It was the first time there was a live feed at a New Zealand competition. It’s safe to say the everyone is already looking forward to next year’s competition at The Remarkables.
Photo Tour:
