For the last few weeks, riders and media have kept mum on all the madness that went down at the final stop of the 2023 Natural Selection Tour in Alaska. But after the broadcast yesterday (see above), we now know how it all shook out.
Travis Rice, who took what he calls one of the worst crashes of his life in the quarterfinals, still managed to plow through the field and claim the top spot for the men. And Zoi Sadowski-Synnott asserted herself again as one of the winningest riders in the history of our sport.
As is the case with each stop of the NST, running the contest successfully is a win unto itself. Alaska’s the big mountain Mecca of the world, and Valdez’s Chugach range has been the point source of freeride progression on both snowboards and skis over the years. But riding lines up there is never a sure thing. Mother Nature always calls the shots and, in spite of a wind event before the NST competition, she still served up (mostly) good snow and a calm, bluebird day within the weather window.
This year’s venue was known as “The Coliseum,” an amphitheater of Alaska’s finest terrain where competitors followed the sun as it tracked across three separate faces within the cirque: one for the quarterfinals, one for the semifinals and one for the finals in the afternoon. That’s a lot of terrain to memorize.
The day started with Canada’s own Chris Rasman guinea-pigging the first face. Chris actually subbed in at the last minute for Torstein Horgmo, who wasn’t feeling well enough to compete. Of course, Rasman did as Rasman does. He linked smooth turns between tricks, hung onto a greasy frontside 720, but ultimately went down in both of his runs.
Rice’s score on run one pushed him through, even though he body-checked a rock and slid limply down the bottom half of the course on run two. Mere mortals would have benched themselves after such a tumble, but a blood-coughing Travis dug into the reserves and carried on to defeat Jared Elston in the semifinals and an in-form Mikkel Bang in the finals.
Elston was solid in his quarterfinal win against Mikey Ciccarelli, showing how far he’s advanced into to his Alaskan learning curve. But Ciccarelli went out in style, stomping a huge, floaty backside 360 on his first run.
The third heat of the day saw Dustin Craven take down Blake Paul who, not surprisingly, flowed down the venue like water through a raging creek. But Dustin spiced things up with hot combos and a business-casual straightline through a boney chute before falling to Mikkel Bang in the semifinals. Dustin seemed just as stoked as Mikkel on that outcome, a reaction that defines the NST competitive vibe. Ultimately, everyone’s just out there riding with their friends.
That same vibe was present in the quarterfinal between Ben Ferguson and Mikkel Bang, both of whom mentioned in their pre-heat interviews that if they lost, they’d be stoked to see the other rider advance. Of course it was Bang who advanced, but not before Ferg dropped a high-stakes chonger of a cliff at the top of his line, spinning a huge frontside 360 in run two. But Bang laid down arguably the most aesthetic line of the entire competition, forging into a fresh new zone and buttering a frontside 180 onto a Chugach muffin that he rounded out with a picture-perfect switch backside 180. Indeed, Mikkel looked like the man to beat throughout the whole competition.
Fatigue appeared to be a factor in the men’s final, with both riders struggling to put down their bigger tricks. Mikkel’s second run was fairly clean, if a little hesitant. He washed out on a frontside 360 before flowing into another backside 180 and blasting out switch through the Alaskan pow. Travis had significant wipeouts on both of his runs in the finals. But the judges still rewarded his hard-charging ways and he just barely edged out Bang to, once again, win his own contest.
The women defined grace under pressure throughout the entire day, with all four of them delivering standout performances. Kimmy Fasani’s return to Alaska for the first time since battling breast cancer was punctuated with stomped, critical drops and steezy backside 360s. She was pitted against her good friend Elena Hight who dropped an absolute heater in the quarters, flowing through the burly terrain and busting a beautiful method at the bottom of her line.
This was Hailey Langland’s first trip to Alaska. But she absolutely smashed her first run, demonstrating board control beyond her years and putting the landing gear down on an air that was bigger than she expected. She was in the lead after run one, but Zoi bounced back with great flow, legs of steel and a sneaky, blind transfer over a spine at the end of her second run.
That put Zoi up against Elena on the “Upper Coliseum”: a longer, more complicated face that hosted the finals in the afternoon. And it feels wrong to call Sadowski-Synnott an underdog, but it seemed like the terrain really played to Hight’s strength and experience. Well, Zoi just stepped to that challenge with a mix of big mountain savvy and freestyle sorcery, finding her way to the top of yet another podium (her 24th in a row!). If she was up against Mikkel and Travis in the finals, she likely still would’ve won.
Boom.
With wins in their Duels, the Revelstoke Stop and now Valdez, Zoi and T.Rice are the overall winners of the 2023 Natural Selection Tour. Huge congratulations are in order to all the riders for making it through the competitive season without significant injury, and also to the entire NST crew for executing the best contest — and also the best broadcasts — in action sports.
Click through the broadcast above to see highlights.
Results:
Men
- Travis Rice
- Mikkel Bang
- Dustin Craven
Women
- Zoi Sadowski-Synott
- Elena Hight
- Kimmy Fasani
