Photo: Skipass.com
Sam Smoothy grew up in Lake Wanaka, New Zealand, the hotbed for the country’s freeride skiing scene. Like many big mountain skiers, Smoothy joined the competitive circuit in 2004 with a racing background, but was drawn to going big with soft landings. His passion for charging lead him to the Freeride World Tour in 2012, and he ultimately became the first participant to podium in three-consecutive events. The 29-year-old Kiwi finished second overall in 2014. He also went viral last year with this insane line. And Smoothy doesn’t just compete. He likes to explore, too. Last year he journeyed to Bolivia with fellow athletes John Collinson and Fraser McDougall (see below).
Freeride skiing is fairly straight forward. It’s just skiing big lines with style. Only the consequences are serious. Scoring is determined by the “overall impression” of the line, on a 0-100 scale, and is an aggregate of five different categories: the difficulty of the line, the air and style, fluidity, control, and technique. Men and women compete on the circuit, in both skiing and snowboarding. Following the third and fourth stops, the field gets trimmed, leaving only those in the running for the overall title.
We caught up with Smoothy to discuss his current season and the FWT in general, which currently features five stops, culminating in the tour’s top competitors facing off at the Swatch Xtreme Verbier in Verbier, Switzerland (April 2nd).
Photo: Freeride World Tour
How’s the season going so far for you?
This season has been an interesting beast, a real slow start snow wise but as soon as I got out [to] the Alps it just dumped and everywhere I traveled its been pretty hammers over head snow, exactly what I was looking for!
What’s your favorite stop on the tour?
My favorite stop is the Verbier Xtreme, its like my second home and I love the aggressive nature of the mountain and then as the last comp everyone’s going pretty HAM and it’s just such a nuts show to be a part of. The party in Verbier with all my buds is pretty all time too.
What’s it like being on the tour? Is it a grind? Are you dead tired by the end of the season?
It does take a toll as it’s a pretty hectic schedule, especially if you’re filming between events but it’s so much fun as well, there’s so many fun people to ride and hang with and the places we get to hit ain’t too bad either.
What’s the atmosphere like at an athlete’s tent? Is it tense? Relaxed? Do you think big mountain attracts a certain type of personality compared to racing and freestyle?
We don’t have athlete tents, but I definitely think it’s much more relaxed than racing and freestyle. Some people are a lot more serious than others and that’s cool they just do their thing but a lot of us really try keep it fun and there’s a whole lot of silliness going on at times too.
Photo: Marker
How did you get your start in big mountain?
My home resort (in New Zealand), Treble Cone, is mainly off piste so yeah just ripping around home with the boys and learning off the old dogs. That progressed to Verbier, Switzerland, which was a huge learning curve. The massive mountains and crazy lift-accessed terrain really pushed me.
Where do you see free ride in 5 years? I think it’s going to grow into a more mainstream/publicized discipline of skiing because it’s actual skiing, whereas freestyle is becoming more un-relatable as the tricks become more advanced. Do you agree?
I think freeride has that wow factor, everyone can understand the fear of jumping big cliffs and steep impressive mountains without having to understand the difference in difficulty of tricks in freestyle, hell I don’t even know any more about some of the tricks being thrown now. That’s not to say freeride is more skiing than other areas, skiing is whatever you want it to be, whatever gets you stoked and that’s what’s so rad about it. You can make it whatever you want. I’m not really too concerned with where it will be in 5 years, I have no crystal ball and would rather just enjoy freeride as it is now and hopefully grow along with it.
How do you raise the money to be able to compete? Do most of the competitors have day jobs or do they do this full time?
I’m one of the lucky ones to have really good support from my sponsors so I haven’t had a day job in a few years now which was a huge turning point in my life, I still sometimes just catch myself and go wow how did this happen! There are more requirements these days, you need a solid social media game, you need to be able to create your own content and get eyes on that. But generally videos cost you money, they don’t earn you any very often. But on Tour you definitely have a huge range from guys making money down to those struggling along, working jobs in the summer and scrimping any dollars they can to chase the dream and I really admire the hard work those guys put in. I think all those years I spent slaving away between seasons to save my New Zealand pesos for euro-winter-splurging definitely makes me appreciate the position I’m in now.
Photo: Freeride World Tour
How have you seen freeride change in the last few years?
The obvious change I think is the blurring of lines between backcountry freestyle and freeride and I love those riders who can incorporate tricks and style into hard charging freeride. You also have freeriders taking high speed and aggressive riding into the ski mountaineering arena, which is incredibly impressive, riding hard in remote locations takes a lot of nerve and planning.
Winner Run of Smoothy Sam (NZL) – Swatch… by FreerideWorldTourTV
Has the possibility of a line going viral encourage people to try to go harder?
This seems to be a hot topic at the moment, do video incentives push people to try things even more extreme and out there? This concept of companies being responsible for the riders they push is something I have been thinking on of lately but I think, for me, the responsibility is always the rider’s. You have to own your own decisions and I like to think I do what I do for the right reasons but yeah I definitely feel we could be wading into murky waters and I would really love to see smart and safe decision making being paramount for both riders and their companies. I think by placing an emphasis on this at a young level we will encourage riders to think longer term than just doing whatever it takes to make a viral video. I would much rather be skiing pow at 60 than a one-hit wonder, broken at 23.
What would you change about the FWT?
I would love to see a true world tour, more stops in places like North and South America, New Zealand and even Asia. I look at guys competing on the World Surfing league with 11 stops spanning the globe and just think how epic competing like that would be. The riders would really have to show a wider range of talents, competing on a variety of terrain and how you would have to put in much more consistent performances. You can win the FWT with 3 big runs at this point, which isn’t really that much. So I would love to see it grow to become fully global.
