Austrians dominate on their home turf at the Swatch Big Mtn Fiberbrunn

Faced with a long, challenging venue with less than perfect snow, today’s riders were divided between those who played it safe by focusing on fluid lines to preserve their position in the rankings, and those who charged the course with everything they had in order to score the critical points that would boost them towards the top of the rankings. Stefan Hausl (AUT) was clearly one of the latter and took the lead early with a crowd-pleasing line that started with a cleanly stuck 15-meter air, was fast and fluid from top to bottom and ended with a big spread eagle at the bottom. Reine Barkered (SWE) came in second followed by local boy Matthias Haunholder (AUT).

The snowboard men were no less exciting with the Austrian locals pushing hard for the win. As the second snowboarder out of the gate, Mitch Toelderer (AUT) rode the course like a man possessed with a run that started immediately out of the gate with a few drops from 1 – 3 meters to a huge double jump that started with a four to five meter drop, then a cleanly stomped five-meter cliff drop, followed by a six-meter cliff drop with a slightly sketched landing. Coming in second place was another Austrian Max Zipser followed by James Stentiford (UK) with his best finish of the season.