FREERIDE WORLD TOUR. Crystal Mountain, Washington, USA – February 10, 2011 – Rookie US snowboarder Tim Carlson overcame challenging snow conditions and a strong field of Freeride World Tour competitors as well as top local US riders to bring home the winning line at Crystal Mountain. The result of the day was interesting: American challengers beat some of the world’s best riders in these difficult conditions.

Three-time Freeride World Champion Xavier de Le Rue (FRA), ended up in sixth place after a fall at the end of the run. “Conditions were some of the most difficult I’ve seen. Imagine it’s been raining for a week and then you get 20 cm of powder and between inspection day and contest day the wind was blowing. So today it was ice at the top of the run and a bit of accumulation at the bottom. I had a good run but I over-rotated a 360 (full rotation) at the bottom and ended up crashing.”

Tim Carlson (USA), in his first The North Face Masters competition, took first place by executing the most creative line of the day with good style, technical riding, and a straight line out of a difficult rock section at the bottom. Canadian Jonathan Penfield was second and last year’s Crystal Mountain winner, Forrest Burki (USA), took a 19-second straight-line for third.

The North Face Masters at Crystal Mountain 2011 by Swatch and Primaloft was the first collaboration between the Freeride World Tour and The North Face Masters with a view to exploring a wider co llaboration from 2012.

FWT Ranking (overall)

The results from today’s event will once again culminate in changes in the men’s overall Freeride World Tour snowboard rankings. Flo Orley (AUT) was fifth at today’s event scoring the highest place among the Freeride World Tour riders. Second-place on the overall ranking Xavier de Le Rue (FRA) was sixth, and overall points leader Matt Annetts (USA) landed in 14th place today, pushing de Le Rue to the top spot of the overall ranking.

Next Stop: Kirkwood

The next stage of the Freeride World Tour is for men and women skiers at Kirkwood, USA: The North American Freeskiing Championships Kirkwood 2011 by Swatch, The North Face and Sierra Nevada,  the 25th of February.

Freeride World Tour
Thu, February 10, 2011

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