Freestyle fest kicks off with men’s slopestyle action
Freeriders wow Big White spectators at international event
The freeride mountain mike bronze men event kicked off the action at the Big White Freeride Days Mountain Bike Festival Thursday afternoon.
The top three from this event automatically qualify for the FMB gold slopestyle event on Saturday, Aug. 6 and have a chance to secure the coveted joyride wildcard for Crankworx in Whistler next week.
After some perfect conditions for practice in the morning, the wind and rain threatened to delay the start of the Men’s FMB Bronze Slopestyle. When the threat abated, competition kicked-off right on schedule. There were 15 riders on the start list with an age range from 15-32 years, making for some fierce competition.
The first riders hit the course just after 2 p.m. with Finley Kirschenmann nailing a clean first run and setting the tone for the rest of the event with a score of 88.33.
Benjamin Markwick from Kamloops quickly jumped into second place with an impressive run and a score of 84.33.
With some massive rotation early in his run and a super clean front flip on the final feature, Lane Bodor laid down a great run but with no trick onto the step-up, he only managed a 67.
The wind kicked up briefly, impacting Andrew Head from Australia’s run - the last of the first round - as he had to pull out of the step-up/step-down feature.
Kirschenmann and Markwick looked unshakable at the top for the entire event and it looked like things were locked up when Alfie Stephens from the U.K. slotted
into third place. Finishing with a front flip on the last booter and a 540 to end his run, Stephens crushed his second run and cracked the podium with an 81.66.
Stephens’s joy was short-lived as the comeback kid, Hayden Zablotny nailed his second run after snapping his crank in the first. Hayden was clean through the early part of his run, threw down a giant superman on
the last booter, and styled out a flare on the quarter pipe to impress the judges and secure third place, bumping Alfie into 4th.
The eventual winner, fifteen-year-old Kirschenmann led from the start and was initially registered for the grom category but stepped it up by entering the bronze event. Most recently living in North Yarmouth, Me., with Kaiden Ingersoll, who
is competing in the FMB Gold Slopestyle event, looks to have paid off for Kirschenmann. His name should appear regularly on future leaderboards.
In the final placing: Finley Kirschenmann, Utah, U.S placed first; Benjamin Markwick, B.C. second; and Hayden Zablotny, B.C. captured third place.