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Natural Selection Tour Day 1 Highlights & Recap

All the gnarliest runs and heaviest tricks from Day 1 of the Natural Selection

Damn. Now that was one helluva show. We’re at possibly the only freeride contest in the world, where riders like Nils Mindnich and Victor de le Rue don’t make it past the first round. Insanity, but the level of riding in Jackson was sky high from start to finish. You’ve got this veritable smorgasbord of riders in a melting pot of experiences and backgrounds, with vastly different skill sets, taking on this incredible purpose-built course, squaring up against not only each other, but the elements. The overriding vibe of the day was ‘holy shit’.

“He couldn’t hold off the froth goblin Austen Sweetin, who went absolutely huge”

Dropping in for the very first run and kicking off the Natural Selection Tour was seasoned vet GiGi Rüf, pushing 40 but still enough juice in the tank to throw down an uber stylish frontside 7 his first attempt. Fair play to him, GiGi was mega but he couldn’t hold off the froth goblin Austen Sweetin, who went absolutely huge all three of his runs to take the win.

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Jackson’s own Blake Paul made it look easy, channelling his inner zen-master Iguchi and practically skimming across the course to take down Elias Elhardt. Both top notch riders but Elias’ explosive power couldn’t best BProddy who was showing experience beyond his years and playing to the home field advantage.

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It was a huge matchup between Ben Ferguson and Bode Merrill, two very high-octane riders with a deep bag of tricks. In the end, it was Ben who pulled it off and also stomped arguably the tastiest method of the day.

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Victor de Le Rue against Sage Kotsenburg was one of the most interesting head to heads, on the one hand you’ve got a polished freestyle-focused Olympic Gold medallist and on the other you’ve got an experienced big mountain rider and Freeride World Tour champion. Both with very different skill sets and levels of experience, both very different riders but arguably two of the strongest competitors in the field. This is where we saw Sage’s last few years of filming in the backcountry really come to fruition to snag the win.

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Canada’s favourite son Mark McMorris went toe to toe with grizzled mountain man Eric Jackson and hammered home the fact he’s not just a pretty spin to win FIS poster boy. Bringing the purple electricity and throwing down some of the most fluid runs of the day, Mark took the win and moves on to the next round.

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One of the most contested brackets of the day had to be Travis Rice squaring up against Manboy OG Chris Rasman. Not as high profile, but arguably one of the very few riders in the world who could make Travis really work for the win, Rasman threw down an incredibly smooth run to take an early lead, but in the end, Travis showed why he’s Travis and went two runs out of three to win.

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Nils Mindnich versus Pat Moore, the young buck against the seasoned vet. Nils went clean as a whistle his first run but it just wasn’t enough, Pat Moore came out swinging with back to back 7’s and showed the current Freeride World Tour champion why he’s still one of the greatest to do it.

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Two European heavy hitters were up next in the head-to-head battle between Werni Stock and Mikkel Bang, both with distinct styles and very different approaches but it was Mikkel’s beautiful switch back 5 that swung it in his favour and quite possibly got our vote for trick of the day.

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Jamie Anderson’s been riding high the last few weeks, she arrived in Jackson off the back of wins in Laax and a double whammy in Aspen but in a battle that went right down to the wire Hana Beaman bested the Olympic champion to ride away victorious and snag the award for best Run Of The Day.

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Another super interesting match-up was young comp kid Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and big mountain film stalwart Robin Van Gyn. Rather than get hung up on her relative lack of experience, Zoi went full froth puppy and absolutely sent it to snag the win. With some of our favourite runs of the day we’re hyped to see what she puts down in the next round.

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A post shared by Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (@zoisynnott)

Elena Hight definitely had the advantage over Hailey Langland in terms of experience, after making moves away from the contest circuit to the backcountry in the last few years but the young gun Hails put on a show for the cameras. Her freestyle prowess and smooth style made it a close call, but Hight walked away with the win.

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Going into the Natural Selection Anna Gasser had said that this was way out of her comfort zone, compare that to Marion Haerty who made a name for herself by winning the FWT three times. It was perhaps the most uneven match up of the competition, but Anna Gasser gave it her all and props to her for getting stuck in. Marion dominated and showed why she’s the favourite to take the women’s crown moving forward.

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