Freeride World Tour Announces Riders For 2013!

A host of new faces join the leading snowboarders from past season, as the Swatch Freeride World tour goes into its first season as a globally unified series!

The new tour will combine top riders and champions from last winter’s Swatch Freeride World Tour and The North Face Masters of Snowboarding. The line-up will additionally include strong talent emerging from the Freeride World Qualifiers as well as some hotly contended wild cards.

The tour will kick off at Revelstoke (CAN) on January 7th 2013, and then move on to the first European stops at Courmayeur-Mont-Blanc (ITA) and Chamonix-Mont-Blanc (FRA). After the following events at Kirkwood (USA) and Fieberbrunn PillerseeTal (AUT), the qualified riders will prepare for the finals at Verbier (SUI).

This season will be a season of firsts for the FWT, with new riders, a new unified calendar and a brand new partnership with ABS, who will be the tour’s Official Air Bag System Supplier.

The Snowboard division features the top six male riders from the Freeride World Tour 2012 and top four male riders from the Masters of Snowboarding 2012 as well as the top three females from the Freeride World Tour 2012 and the Masters of Snowboarding 2012 who are automatically qualified.

Confirmed snowboarders include 2012 Freeride World Tour champion Jonathan Charlet (FRA), 2012 Masters of Snowboarding champion Sammy Luebke (USA), three-time Freeride World Tour champion Xavier de Le Rue (FRA) from the Swatch Proteam, as well as Ralph Backstrom (USA), Flo Orley (AUT), and 2012 Masters of Snowboarding champion Shannan Yates (USA).

In addition, several riders in all categories qualified through the Freeride World Qualifiers 2012. Talents who now have the opportunity to prove themselves include Ludovic Guillot-Diat (FRA), Joel Rouge (SUI), and French sisters Margot and Elodie Mouthon (FRA).

Excitement is growing amongst the competing riders as talk of the tour gets underway

Xavier de Le Rue (FRA), triple Freeride World Tour winner has this to say:

“I'm really happy to see The North Face getting on board of the Freeride World Tour for the next few years. I'm sure that along with Swatch and the reunification of both tours, the FWT will reach a well-deserved next level. On a personal level, filming will keep me a bit too busy to follow the whole tour, but I'll be excited to come and ride three of the events of the tour.”

Margot Rozies (FRA), showed her excitement as well :

“The fusion of the tours is a very good thing. One single World Tour definitely makes more sense! For me personally, I just wanna enjoy it and have fun riding the runs!”

The full competition calendar is below:

1. Swatch Freeride World Tour Revelstoke 2013 by The North Face

Dates: 7 January; Location: Revelstoke (CAN)