The Freeride Force Is Strong In The Youth

We’ve all felt the pressure of trying to squeeze the most out of the Australian winter season. Finishing work early on a Friday (to the boss’s dismay), loading up the car, storming up or down the Hume Highway, hoping to beat the traffic, hoping it snows, hoping they spin that chair you’ve been hanging out for all winter. We don’t take a single day or lap for granted.

For an upcoming contingent of young competitive Australian freeride athletes they can relate to the old phrase about diamonds being formed under pressure. They are honing their craft in sometimes challenging or limited conditions but when they get to go toe to toe with the world’s best in the Freeride World Tour Junior events in New Zealand, Europe and North America, these young athletes are holding their own in an increasingly tough game.

Freeride is the fastest growing winter sport in the world, originating as a snowboarder only contest, at the 1996 Xtreme Verbier. An invite–only event, it was devised to give riders an opportunity to showcase their skills against one another in the crucible of The Bec des Rosses in Verbier. Thirty years later the finals are still held each year on this same awesome zone. Freeride is growing with roughly 6,000 participants world-wide across 200+ organised events but it’s only just beginning to poke its head through the clouds.

It started out as a counterculture movement of sorts. The explorers, daydreamers and thrill seekers created something that was wholly theirs and shared it with anybody who would think to come looking.

“There’s not too many things in life where you can put yourself in a position where you have to concentrate on one thing and one thing only. It’s a wonderful part of being alive, to be able to experience something like that.”  Steve Classon – Xtreme Verbier Legend 

There’s a deep tradition of exploration and adventure in our unique alpine playground. Local legends and the anonymous alike have spent many years scouring the many ridges and gullies of the Australian Great Dividing Range, sharpening their tools and skillsets, searching for new ways to challenge themselves. Athletes like Nat Segal (3rd place, Revelstoke FWT, 2013), Michaela Davis Meehan (First Australian to win an FWT) and Vaughn Hardwick (2nd place, FWTJ World Championships, 2023) have taken it to the biggest stage and proven the humble hills of Australia can be proving grounds for global success stories. 

Described as ‘a vertical free-verse poem on the mountain, the ultimate expression of all that is fun and liberating about sliding on snow in wintertime’ (FWT) this sport has captured the imagination of the youth. Young ski racers who don’t want to ski between the lines anymore and young freestylers enticed by the freedom of choice are jumping ship and joining freeride clubs globally. The sport is growing so fast that the FWT Junior events in Canada have had to limit the number of competitions an athlete can enter during a season to ensure all athletes have opportunities to participate. 

Freeride is a judged discipline where athletes earn points based on their line choice, technique, control, fluidity and air and style. A high scoring run will have painted a smooth but challenging line on the face, skied fast and in control, demonstrated style in the air and confidence on their feet. A set of criteria for which the Australian mountains offer an ideal training ground. 

Lifts may only spin down here for half the days that our Northern Hemisphere competition have access to. Ah well, we get what we’re given and it’s about what we do with each of those moments when they arise. Opportunity isn’t linear though, it favours the hungry and committed.  The talent and success emerging from our Australian junior clubs in freestyle and moguls’ pathways over the past decade makes it clear; we have the facilities to train world class athletes and there is a passion and drive in young Aussie skiers making them serious contenders for places on podiums anywhere on the planet.

The sometimes-vexing variability of the Australian snowpack is an unexpected advantage for our athletes giving them a leg up against much of their international competition. The shift from ice to powder to bumps to slush in the space of half a dozen turns we often experience at home mimics the upside-down conditions that are often dealt out in freeride events. Forced to make the most of it, Aussie athletes tend to not only cope in those unpredictable conditions, they shine.

Finn Jacobsen of the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, cut his teeth as a junior freeride/freestyle athlete in club programs at Mt Hotham and now sits as the top ranked freeride junior in the world. Having just spent the winter with the newly formed Higher Freeride program following the European FWTJ series, Finn is holding the Australian flag high. Taking wins in Baqueira Beret, Spain and Montafon, Austria, Finn is proving to the world the fertility of our soil, qualifying for the Freeride World Junior Championships in January 2025.

Finn is just the tip of the iceberg; there’s a growing posse of young Aussie talent strutting their stuff on the global stage. Harry Rowden, Jackson Bayliss and Theo Lansbury showed their skills in Europe this season, Harry pushing the podium on multiple occasions. In America, Jasper Rogers has taken it all the way to the North American Freeskiing Championships and on the Freeride World Qualifiers while Zanna Farrell took out the coveted Nendaz Freeride to secure a spot on the Challenger series, vying for FWT qualification.

The ability to take school and life on the road for the northern winter isn’t within reach for everyone, but it’s exciting to see the opportunities at home growing each season with freeride clubs popping up in most major resorts and junior freeride competitions now firmly on the calendar in both Hotham and Thredbo. The talent pool from down under is only set to deepen.

Dion Newport’s New Zealand Junior Freeride Tour (NZJFT) offers the perfect leapfrog opportunity just across the ditch for young Aussies looking to flex and develop. International programs also popping up such as Higher Freeride and Team Buller Riders offering another lily pad for young athletes looking to take their skills to the world stage.

The point is this, freeride skiing is not new in Australia. There’s been a bubbling pool of talent ripping around through the snowgums and seeking out big mountain lines since skiing got started down here, it’s just tended to be low-key and under the radar as is often the Aussie way. What’s new is the opportunities popping up for young skiers to get on a pathway in this exciting segment of our sport. The grassroots culture of freeride is firmly established and it’s only gaining momentum.  Kids now have a community to join, heroes to look up to, coaching, avalanche safety training and avenues to travel and compete overseas.

Freeriding will only become safer, more inclusive, more accessible and will produce more homegrown talent to take to the rest of the world. This is just the first chapter.