Australian Freeriding on the Rise with More Events and Pathway Programs
Mountainwatch | Nick Higginson
When Mt Hotham hosted the first ever certified Freeride World Junior and Freeride World Qualifier events on the first weekend of August it was a landmark weekend for freeriding in Australia.
The bubbling undercurrent of Australia’s freeride scene burst through to the surface, with a host of skiers and snowboarders – male and female, open and junior – heading to Hotham for the weekend. There were 130 entrants in the Junior categories, and 72 adults competing in the open category, many of them in their first ever organised event. The level of participation at the event speaks volumes for the grassroots level of support of the discipline which is one of the fastest growing sports in the world.
The level of competition was impressive with riders throwing down some barnstorming runs featuring back flips, cliff drops and hard and fast open turns. You can read the event report and results here.
Beyond the results, the significance of having certified events for young athletes to push their ability and see a vision of what their future in the sport cannot be overstated.
Zanna Farrell, Australian Freerider who last year qualified for the Challenger Series with an opportunity to ski her way onto the Freeride World Tour next year came out to support the growth of the sport.
“It was honestly so amazing, growing up we never had something like this in Australia to look up to or to aspire to. To see all these athletes, mostly unseeded, competing in their first ever event it just shows how much interest in the sport there is.”
Dion Newport, founder of the New Zealand Junior Tour 10 years ago, came across to consult and help Australian Freeride find its own feet in a quickly evolving freeride landscape and after the junior event he had glowing words about the standard of riding and support from the community.
“The level of the riding here has really impressed me, and particularly the snowboarders here, the level is really strong,” Dion said. “This is a massive step for the sport in Australia, getting one event certified here will pave the way for other events to become certified FWT events, and help develop a genuine competition series here in Australia.
“The support of the community here for the event and the sport has been incredible. It has been amazing to be a part of it and to be welcomed into it, it’s exactly like our little Freeride community we have in New Zealand and it feels very special. Australia, you should be proud.”
Back in early June FIS announced Freeride competition as an official discipline, its first step towards the Olympics and Snow Australia plans to have freeride under its banner as a recognised pathway program. Snow Australia representative Ben Bond was in Hotham to support the competition, and after the Junior event he discussed its journey towards becoming an Olympic discipline.
“It’s great to see the support here for the sport, and while Freeride will not be a discipline at Winter Olympics in 2026 (Cortina D’Ampazzo, Italy), however it may be included in the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps”.
The opening of a competition pathway for freeride in Australia has significant implications for this. A country’s ability to have a competitive international athletic pathway in large part depends upon its ability to develop a density of talent at home. In other words, you need people in the sport.
Watching our swimmers win medal after medal at the Paris Olympics is in no small part due to our enormous participation base in the sport This allows peer groups that push each other while talent identification at a young age helps athletes tailor their training and target specific events.
The same is true for freeride. Both logistically and financially for many families it is not sustainable to travel to New Zealand or Europe to compete in freeride events. The result is athletes with talent often end up in alpine skiing, moguls or slopestyle pathways due to the availability of competition and coaching programs across the Australian Resorts.
More events and a recognised Snow Australia pathway will help the development of Australia’s young freeride athletes. The level of talent in freeride is hitting new heights in large part due to the first generation of kids that have trained the discipline from a young age. Rather than having slopestyle or alpine athletes who are finding an afterlife as Freeriders, these young athletes are coming into the sport as Freeriders and building discipline specific skills right from the start.
Head Freeride Coach at Hotham Jake Woods commented that, “These young crew coming into the sport now are so talented, they’re pushing the old guard out of the sport. Starting out training freeride specifically…it shows in the level that they’re taking the sport to.”
On August 12th Thredbo hosted the ‘Battle on the Bluff’, freeride event which was attracted a big field and was a showcase of progressive freeriding. Falls Creek also had its first ever junior freeride event on its event program in mid-August but had to cancel due to snow conditions. This inaugural sanctioned event at Hotham may open the door and allow these competitions and more to become certified FWT events and help our athletes build points to compete in Europe or earn wildcards to events around the world.
Over the past two weeks Australian freeriders have competed in The North Face Frontier qualifying events in New Zealand, Natalie Melis, placing third in the women’s ski at the 2-star event at Treble Cone while Vaughn Hardwick won the men’s snowboard.
Finn Jacobsen, who won the junior event at Hotham, is one of the top-ranked juniors in the world, finishing equal first on the 2024 Europe/Oceania Freeride Junior Tour. In the past two weeks he has had a first and a second on the NZ Junior Freeride Series and will also represent Australia next year at the Junior World Championships in Kappl in Austria
Finn is just one of a vast pool of young talent that includes Jasper Rodgers, Harry Rowden, Lulu Laird, Neve White, Eli Gregory, Harlem Pec, James Garth, Leonardo Grollo and many, many more.
The rolling of small stones that may start the freeride landslide has begun here in Australia.
