The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Louise Lintilhac takes fourth
On December 27, CBMR/Moment Skis athlete Tom Runcie and local photographer Trent Bona set off for Denver at 5 a.m. The goal was to pick up an RV that had been sponsored by RV America, head to Canada in search of powder and eventually arrive at the 2012 Canadian Freeskiing Championships.
The next week found them cruising around the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, skiing with a host of Crested Butte alumni such as Louise Lintilhac, Dana Allen, and Caleb Mullen. After completing an ESPN Freeskiing segment about the RV’s stops at Whitewater, Fernie and Kicking Horse Resorts the crew arrived at Revelstoke Mountain Resort where the Freeskiing World Tour of North America and the Freeride World Tour of Europe had joined forces for an international slugfest of competitive extreme skiing. The combination of the two tours brought many of the top international big mountain competitors together on one stage.
After two days of intense competition through the qualifiers and day one, the event had to be put on hold for four days while production waited for the weather to improve. The venue for the finals was the coveted Mac Daddy Face, which sits just out of bounds on the backside of Revelstoke. The face was big mountain terrain at its finest and the FWT crew was ecstatic when they finally had a wall-to-wall bluebird day to ensure good visibility and the ability to fly athletes to the top of the venue in A-Star helicopters.
The men went first (breaking precedent with previous competitions) after a strictly visual-only inspection from the opposing ridge. The venue proved challenging even for the best competitive skiers on the plane, with nine of the 25 men falling on the steep cliff-laden face. In the end, Kye Peterson of Whistler Blackcomb and Angel Collinson of Snowbird took the top place for men and women.
Ski RV crew member Tom Runcie fell short of qualifying from day one of the competition while former Crested Butte resident and fellow Ski RV athlete Louise Lintilhac took fourth place in the women’s competition and is hoping for enough snow to allow a homecoming next month when the FWT is scheduled to drop through CBMR’s world famous Extremes.
For more information on the tour go to www.freeskiingworldtour.com; also watch the incredible skiing of each FWT competition via live feed.
