Third Cancellation in Weeks: Freeride World Tour Bails on Austria
Another event, another cancellation.
The Freeride World Tour announced on March 6, 2026, that its Fieberbrunn Pro competition in Austria had been canned.
“While Fieberbrunn still offered the best available conditions, none of the options assessed met the safety, snow quality, and contestability standards required to stage a Freeride World Tour Pro competition,” organizers wrote in a release.
At first, organizers saw promising conditions on the Fieberbrunn venue, the Wildseeloder. But, they said, increasing humidity and new snowfall triggered an avalanche that impacted much of the slope. Then, the clear nights that could’ve stabilized the snow didn’t come.
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The cancellation follows a string of sidelined events. First, citing unstable snow, the Freeride World Tour called off the Georgia Pro, a relatively new addition to the circuit. Days later, after attempting to re-stage that event in Küthai, Austria, they had to pull back again.
Afterwards, Freeride World Tour commissioner Lolo Besse said in the livestream that they had hoped for spring-like conditions at Küthai, but the venue had a lot of different aspects, and reaching perfect conditions on those aspects was hard.
“To have pleasure, it’s okay,” he said. “But to be in a contest where the riders would really send it, to make a result, to push it, that would be not only difficult, but also dangerous.”
That leaves two events on the Freeride World Tour calendar: the Alaska Haines Pro and Xtreme Verbier. To ski in those events, athletes have to earn enough points to pass what the Freeride World Tour calls the “cut.”
Without the cancellations, they would have had four chances to do so. But now, the Freeride World Tour is determining qualification based on the current standings after the first two competitions in France and Spain.
In the latest release, the Freeride World Tour pointed out that “freeride is one of the few professional sports that does not control its arena.”
“We compete on natural mountain faces shaped entirely by the elements, and when conditions do not allow for safe and fair competition, we cannot run the event,” organizers continued. While these competitions have weather windows to account for changing conditions, in some cases, that isn’t enough.
The next event, the Alaska Haines Pro, is scheduled to go down between March 14 and March 21.
Who Made the Cut?
Qualified Women
- Agostina Vietti
- Justine Dufour Lapointe
- Sybille Blanjean
- Zoe Delzoppo
- Wynter Mcbride
- Lou Barin
Qualified Men
- Ben Richards
- Ross Tester
- Max Hitzig
- Joey Leonardo
- Toby Rafford
- Weitien Ho
- Ugo Troubat
- Marcus Goguen
- Jack Kolesch
- Tiemo Rolshoven
- Abel Moga
- Victor Hale-Woods
- Fynn Powell
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