FREERIDE WORLD CHAMPIONS 2020

26th March 2020

Last modified on May 15th, 2021

The winners have been announced following the cancellation of Verbier Xtreme, the Grande Finale of the Freeride World Tour.

The coronavirus outbreak put a stop to the finals in the spectacular setting of the Swiss ski resort but the FWT20 athletes did their stuff from Hakuba in Japan to Fieberbrunn in Austria by way of Kicking Horse in Canada and Ordino Arcalis in Andorra.

The overall final rankings have recently been published.

SKI MEN

1 – Isaac Freeland (USA) – He’s the World Champion and winner of the Rookie of the Year 2020 award.

2 – Kristofer Turdell (Sweden) – He came to close to reclaiming the title he won in 2018 and finished second overall.

3 – Andrew Polland (USA) – The 2019 Rookie of the Year improved his performance to finish 3rd.

SKI WOMEN

1 – Arianna Tricomi (Italy) – She is World Champion for the third time in her career. Despite being injured after the Kicking Horse Golden BC stop, she put her skis back on the for the two European stages to win the title.

2 – Hedvig Wessell (Norway) – She closely followed Tricomi, consistently showing her freestyle talents through the season.

3 – Jaclyn Paaso (USA) – She has been on the Tour since 2013 and continued to rack up the points throughout the season to finish 3rd inthe rankings.

The Rookie of the Year 2020 is Jessica Hotter (New Zealand), who finished 4th (video below).

SNOWBOARD WOMEN

1 – Marion Haerty (France) – The triple World Champion seems untouchable. She finished 1st at the first two stops of the Tour and would have won the title even if the final stop in Verbier had gone ahead.

2 – Michaela Davis-Meehan (Australia) – She showed her talents in Ordino Arcalis hich secured her 2nd place in the rankings.

3 – Erika Vikander (USA) – The top two were closely followed by the American in 3rd.

SNOWBOARD MEN

1 – Nils Mindnich (USA) was a wildcard for 2020 and left the world of freeride in awe. The Ordino Arcalis stop was moved to Fieberbrunn for the snowboarders and he won both runs there in the Wildseeloder face. He had already picked up a podium place in Hakuba, giving him the title for the first time in his career.

2 – Victor De La Rue (France) – The 2019 World Champion was one of two snowboarding prodigies to complete the World Championship podium, this time finishing 2nd.

3 – Sammy Luebke (USA) – The Tour legend for the past 6 years and triple World Champion had to settle for 3rd in 2020.