FREERIDE. Lutry, SUI – 19 December 2011 – The date (21- 27 January) of the 2012 Swatch Freeride World Tour (FWT) is coming closer and closer. The Tour will once again stop in the famous French resort of Chamonix (www.chamonix.com), set against the beautiful backdrop of the Mont Blanc, and widely considered as the Mecca of Freeriding.

The 5th season of the FWT promises again to become a competition full of suspense with the world’s best freeriders competing for the prestigious Swatch Freeride World Tour Champion title. Some exciting new riders from the 2011 Freeride World Qualifiers (FWQ) will join this year’s competition.

One of them is Ludovic Guillot-Diat, who won the men's 2011 Freeride World Qualifiers (FWQ) snowboard tour and at the same time his ticket for the FWT 2012. He competed for many years in the French boarder cross team and is looking forward to his first season on the Tour: “I am fortunate this year to be part of the dozen riders who will compete for the title. My main goal for this season is to acquire a maximum of experience. For that I will compete on the FWT and the FWQ to learn as much as I can. The program will be intense. A very good season for me would be to finish in the top 3 of a FWT and a victory of a FWQ stop. My long-term goal is to to become one day Freeride World Champion. The Freeride World Tour until last year was for me a childhood dream, I am now a big kid who will fulfill his dream!”

Kevin Guri won the 2011 FWQ ski competition. He comes from a Freestyle background and will be, at just 22 years old, the youngest competitor on the Tour: “I will have a very busy winter with a lot of competitions and also some shootings for films. I am looking forward to be at the start of the Freeride World Tour with a lot of very famous riders. I hope to learn a lot from them but also to bring a new and young vision to the Freeride World Tour with freestyle tricks in the faces.”

On the side of the women the tour welcomes back to the ski competition Lorraine Huber from Austria who was absent in 2011 and is ready for the new season: “Competing in the Freeride World Tour has been my major source of motivation to get my body in shape again this year. It was very tough coming back from chronic illness and a long-term knee injury but I'm feeling stronger than ever now. I haven't competed since 2010 and I don't want to put too much pressure on myself by setting my sights on a win, so my main goal is to enjoy the skiing and ski consistently.”

Freeride World Tour
www.FreerideWorldTour.com
Mon, December 19, 2011