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> News > YETI Natural Selection at Jackson Hole Qualifying Day Recap

snowboarding News

YETI Natural Selection at Jackson Hole Qualifying Day Recap

Mark McMorris inspects the course during the preview for the Natural Selection Tour at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Jackson, WY, USA, on 02 February, 2021. Image credit: / Mark Clavin / Red Bull Content Pool / Natural Selection

05 February 2021

History was made today at the YETI Natural Selection at Jackson Hole. Day one of the world’s first ever, all-mountain, freestyle snowboard tour, dreamed up by snowboarder Travis Rice, featured perfect conditions. Here 24 of the best men’s and women’s snowboarders in the world put fresh tracks down on sixteen-acres of prime inbounds terrain featuring 50-plus enhanced and natural features. Custom-built, stabilized racing drones helped to carry the action from the vast venue, high up on Jackson Hole Mountain Resort to homes and hands worldwide live, free and in its entirety exclusively on Red Bull TV.

The riders wasted no time getting down to business with half of the men’s division dropping first in a heated head-to-head format led off by veteran Natural Selection rider and 2013 Red Bull Ultranatural Champion Gigi Rüf. There was no shortage of highlights from this bracket, but it was clear that the freestylers had an edge up on the big mountain riders as Ben Ferguson (USA), Sage Kotsenburg (USA), Austen Sweetin (USA) and Blake Paul (USA) put down exciting, worthy runs through the fresh course to advance.

On the women’s side, backcountry prowess and experience paid off for Hana Beaman (USA), Elena Hight (USA), and Marion Hearty (FRA), while Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (NZL) seemingly effortlessly translated her technical freestyle skills into the powder. Beaman showed what experience and talent can bring as she dominated with the top women’s score of the day launching a huge Wildcat and an absolutely clean run from top to bottom, earning the Visit Jackson Hole Run of the Day.

“The course felt amazing!” says Beaman. “Whatever concerns I had went away when we watched the first guys drop, it looked dreamy. I had some lines, features picked out, but I didn’t know what I was going to do for sure, so I was just waiting to see how things played out. I was just trying to get a clean run and do a fun trick or two. I was up against Jamie [Anderson] who’s such a boss and coming off X Games domination, again. I figured I was going to lose respectfully or win miraculously, so I might as well have fun and hit the jumps I wanted to!”

The men’s field returned to close out this full day of competition, and it was Mark McMorris (CAN), Travis Rice (USA), Mikkel Bang (NOR) and Pat Moore (USA) making it through to the quarterfinals. Moore on the very last run of the very last tie-breaking round, took the heat against Nils Mindnich (USA) with a huge backside 720 at the top, blasting gaps, slashing pow turns and executing a nearly perfect run to earn a spot in finals and the Visit Jackson Hole Run of the Day.

“Just getting an invitation to this contest felt like a win in itself!” says Moore, “I just wanted to link some tricks together and put together a run. I knew I was up against Nils [Mindnich], and he's so good and so consistent, that I just focused on what I could do to put together a good run. And that's it. It didn't matter as much to me what place I got or the end result, I'm just honored to be part of such an incredible event.”

Day one’s action can be watched again and again exclusively on Red Bull TV offering viewers uninterrupted, front row seats to the evolution of snowboarding. Natural Selection Tour organizers have already called tomorrow as a “NO GO” to allow the course to reset with a storm rolling through the Tetons now through Friday afternoon. The next call will be made at 4PM MST tomorrow. The finals will run for the day between now and February 9 when conditions are most prime.

Set a notification on the Natural Selection Instagram page by selecting the bell icon in the top right corner and download the Red Bull TV app to be alerted to competition days as soon as the call is made. Then tune-in to the finals of the YETI Natural Selection at Jackson Hole live, free and in its entirety exclusively on Red Bull TV and embed the full broadcast on your page.

The YETI Natural Selection at Jackson Hole marks the first stop of the three stop tour. From Jackson, the tour will venture north to the Natural Selection at Baldface Lodge in B.C, Canada; and culminate at the remote HempFusion Natural Selection at Tordrillo Mountain Lodge in Alaska, where the tour champions—the best all-mountain male and female freestyle riders on the planet—will ultimately be crowned.

Watch day one of the YETI Natural Selection Tour at Jackson Hole: http://win.gs/watchNST

Find Natural Selection Tour images and videos from inception through today: redbullcontentpool.com/NSTjacksonhole

The Natural Selection Jackson Hole is working with leading Covid-19 compliance consultants Fenceline Solutions and the host venue to ensure that competitions are run safely for the athletes, crew, venue staff and hosting communities.

Like-minded partners have come together to help develop and support the Tour. YETI will entitle the Jackson Hole event and lead the Tour’s sustainability strategy alongside Conservation International. HempFusion will entitle the Alaska event. Additional partners include Backcountry, Red Bull, GoPro, Fuel Off-Road, Polaris, Fat Tire, Visit Jackson Hole, Toyo Tires, Thule, along with host venues Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Baldface Lodge and Tordrillo Mountain Lodge.

Through the Industry Alliance marketing platform, endemic brands are able to directly support the events and their team riders competing on the Natural Selection Tour. Alliance members receive brand presence on streaming, broadcast and at the events, along with access to content and social assets from the Tour for marketing their team riders. The Natural Selection Tour thanks BOA, Burton, Mervin Manufacturing, Oakley, Quiksilver, Union Binding Company, VANS, Salomon, K2, The North Face, Jones Snowboards, Picture, Smith Optics, Dakine and SPOT Insurance for being the founding members of this industry-unifying effort.

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Stay up to date with Natural Selection Tour via social media: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and also through their website.