Featured Picture: Courtesy of Nendaz Freeride | Skier: Markus Eder
The 2025 Nendaz Backcountry Invitational has been confirmed for Sunday, January twelfth, 2025. Maybe essentially the most underrated occasion in all of freeskiing, this invitational blends freestyle and backcountry using right into a masterclass of pow snowboarding. Booters can be sculpted, traces can be crafted and large tips can be had as one of the best of one of the best take the stage this weekend in Switzerland.
“Because of latest snowfalls and a really favorable climate forecast for the subsequent few days, the fifth version of the Backcountry Invitational can be held this Sunday in sensible sunshine,” the official press launch learn. “The Nendaz Freeride crew of shapers has been laborious at work since Monday morning to create the biggest ephemeral snowpark by Saturday night.”
Final 12 months’s occasion was nothing wanting a complete success, with blue skies and deep snow highlighting the day. The face noticed 30-40 cm of latest snow, giving riders the arrogance to go huge. Craig Murray (NZL) took the win on the lads’s aspect and Arianna Tricomi (ITA) barely etched out the win within the ladies’s area by 0.001 factors. With loads of recognizable faces and some new ones as effectively, the 2025 Nendaz Backcountry Invitational is shaping as much as be a heavy hitter. Riders are given three runs to throw down their excellent line, which incorporates using each artifical jumps and pure options.
“Organizing an occasion like this with simply 5 days to go requires rigorous planning and a motivated, skilled crew,” the press launch continued. “This crew contains the organizing committee, however above all, the shapers who’ve been getting ready the terrain and jumps for the previous couple of days, a meteorologist and one of the best athletes on the freestyle / backcountry scene able to arrive in Nendaz on the final minute to provide their all in a sensational present!” The Nendaz Freeride crew is among the hardest working on the market, with the Backcountry Invitational being only one a part of their season.
Learn on for the total athlete listing, the way to watch the livestream on Freeskier.com and extra
If you happen to’re within the space, we extremely encourage heading to the occasion, because the in-person environment merely can’t be overwhelmed. There can be reside music, a bar and a viewing space for the general public to take pleasure in.
And for those who can’t make it throughout the pond to Switzerland, concern not! You may entry the reside stream without cost under, which is slated to begin at 9:30 AM GMT.
SKI MEN
A number of the greatest freeriders and freestylers on the worldwide scene can be coming to Nendaz for this occasion. Within the males’s ski class, former world champion Leo Slemett (FRA) can have his work minimize out to win the title towards the brand new recruits to the Freeride World Tour, Frenchman Mathys Fornasier (representing Winter Exercise), Canadian Tiemo Rolshoven, American Alex Hackel (fifth final 12 months) and New Zealanders Nico Porteous and Lach Powell.
SKI WOMEN
On the ladies’s aspect, the extent can be very excessive with the presence in Nendaz of freestyle snowboarding champion and PyeongChang Olympic Video games participant Lou Barin (FRA). She can be joined by Freeride World Tour Challenger riders Mila Delerue (FRA), Eva Battolla (SUI) and Astrid Cheylus (FRA). Swiss freestyle hopeful Nour El Khazen (SUI) can even be collaborating.
