Freshman Max Durtschi lands himself on the Freeride World Tour

In late March Mountain Sports Athletes Max Durtschi and Sierra “Sisi” Sawyer made a break for the border with coach Ed Dujardin in a last minute effort to to qualifiy for the Freeride World Tour.  The Freeride World Qualifier 4* Event took place at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Golden, British Columbia on a large and challenging venue.  Durtschi and Sawyer both had great runs on day one, with each of them sitting in the top ten heading into the finals.  Even though he missed a feature in his finals run, Max was able able to jump on to the podium with a 3rd place finish behind last years Junior National Champion Martin Lentz in 1st and local skier Trace Cook in 2nd.  Fortunately for Durtschi, Lentz’s win wasn’t enough to overtake Durtschi on the season and he stands as the new North American Champion.

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Max Durtschi

Unfortanetly for Sawyer, a small crash at the end of her finals run would knock her out of the top ten and out of the running for a spot on next year’s Freeride World Tour.  Sawyer would come home with an 11th place finish and the mental fuel necessary to chase down a championship next season.  Overall, Sawyer took 3rd Place in the North American Freeride World Qualifiers.

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Sierra “Sisi” Sawyer

 

Western’s Freeride Team Takes Multiple Team Podiums in the IFSA Collegiate Freeride Series

The IFSA Collegiate Freeride Series Finals (CFS) were supposed to take place on the same weekend with Western and the University of British Columbia neck and neck headed down to the wire.  Unfortunately for the hundreds of college students around the country that were looking forward to this event, Mother Nature had other plans.  A well below average snow year coupled with extremely high temperatures left the fine folks at Crested Butte Mountain Resort with no option except to cancel the event. This forced CFS organizers to base this years awards on results from earlier CFS Events at Grand Targhee in January and Snowbird in March.  Western would end up taking team victories in Men’s Skiing and Men’s Snowboarding.  The Overall CFS Title would end up going to the University of British Columbia with Western in a close second.

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Conner Michael

Full IFSA Collegiate Freeride Series Results:

Overall Title
  1. University of British Columbia
  2. Western State Colorado University
  3. Westminster College
Men’s Skiing
  1. Western State Colorado University
  2. University of British Columbia
  3. University of Colorado Boulder
Women’s Skiing
  1. University of British Columbia
  2. University of Colorado Boulder
  3. Colorado College
Men’s Snowboarding
  1. Western State Colorado University
  2. Westminster College
  3. University of British Columbia
Women’s Snowboarding
  1. Montana State University
  2. Whitman College
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Western’s Freeride Team inspecting the venue at Grand Targhee

For more information, please visit the following links:

Freeride World Tour press release

International Freeskiers and Snowboarders Association (IFSA)

Freeride World Tour

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