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The Freestyle Rundown - April 7, 2020

Apr 08, 2020·Freeski Park & Pipe
Henrik Harlaut (SWE) © Buchholz/FIS Snowboard

A big hello and how are ya to freestyle ski fans around the world during what is a time of some pretty extreme uncertanty, concern, and fear for everybody. With the FIS Freestyle World Cup season shutdown prematurely a few weeks ago and the chairlifts at ski resorts pretty much everywhere no longer spinning, most of us are longing hard for the days when we can be back on the hill and doing what we all love best.

While the resorts certainly won't be opening up again before the summer's fully here (at least not in the northern hemisphere), and while most of us are sliding into our third or fourth week of self-isolation, social distancing, and  it doesn't mean there isn't anything interesting happening in the world of skiing.

Beginning today we'll be taking a page from FIS Snowboard's Monday Mix and launching our own version called the Rundown to go online every Wednesday through the off-season. We'll be collecting the best/funniest/entertaining-est pieces of social media and news from around the web and bringing them all together here very week in what we hope can be a bit of a light in these dark times.

So without further ado, let's dive into what's been going down around town, starting with the endlessly entertaining Andri Ragettli who, after absolutely taking over the airwaves a couple weeks ago with his latest, self-isolation version of the parkour challenge (as well as offering Justin Bieber assistence for his next attempt), was back this week illustrating a couple of super hard ways to do easy things.

First up, hardway bike riding:

Casual sunday bike ride! Lol🤷‍♂️😂 #Sunday #BikeChallenge #Quarantine #ImBored #TikTok #Biking #CoronaTime #StayHomeToGetThere

And next, hardway...networking?

My home office 2020 be like!🤷‍♂️🤣 with @gianragettli #HomeOffice #Quarantine #BackYard #stayhome #TikTok #StayHomeToGetThere

Speaking of making things more difficult, Thibault Magnin (ESP) went ahead and found a way to take standing backflips from just "extremely very hard" to "literally impossible." First off, who can even do a one-legged squat that deep? Secondly, who can do a one-legged standing backflip to one-foot-landing, even WITHOUT the squat at the start? Thirdly...IS THIS ALL JUST SOME KIND OF JOKE TO YOU, THIB??

Two pistol squats, one backflip. Probably one of hardest thing that came to my mind but definitely wanted to get it!! took me too many tries to count ahha.. #homeworkout #stayhome #pistolsquat #backflip #pistolsquatchallenge #proprioception filmed by @giuliatanno

If Thib's out here setting new standards in the bionic quads department, Canada's Noah Bowman is looking to take his upper body on a hot trip to Gainsville with these Redbull bumper plates. Next week we want to see two flats per side, Noah...

In times like these you gotta make use of whatcha got. Thanks @redbullcanada for helping out with the home gym.

And wrapping up what was a big week for meme-ing by the men of freeski, Bowman's compatriot Phil Langevin said "hey who even needs to go outside to ski anyway?" and then went ahead and turned himself into a ShredSauce character. Did you see that trip 16 ender tho?

How to create your own @shredsauce character with @phil_langevin 😜⛷ . . . . . #freestylecanadaski #skiing #videogamememes #videogaming #gaming #onlinegaming

On to some slightly more serious matters, as Monday, April 6th marked the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. An initiative with the goal of "implementing and ensuring the sustainability of field programs, maximizing the use of sport for development and peace and leading social transformation in every area of the world affected by poverty or social instability," Peace and Sport has done incredible work to "reinsert child soldiers back into society, to help war orphans rebuild their self-confidence, to reintegrate refugees, facilitate access to education, and more…" and on Monday athletes like ski cross legend Ophelie David (FRA) showed their support by showing their white cards on social media...

#whitecard pour la journée mondiale du développement et de la paix grâce au sport 👊🕊💪 #idsdp2020 @peaceandsport

Sticking with ski cross for a minute, Australia's very own Sami Kennedy-Sim, along with SnowAust launched a new initiative of her own on Monday, dubbed #SnowActive. With eight 30-minute workouts coming to you every Tuesday from a two-time Olympic SX athlete over the next several weeks, keeping your body tuned up and ready for whenever this lockdown gets lifted should be a breeze.

Week One is LIVE!! So excited to get #SnowActive with you all! Link in Bio!

Over in the moguls world, French ace Ben Cavet took a little look-back at our Behind the Scenes feature with him from a few weeks ago, where he reminisced on his decade-long World Cup career. Still just 26-years-old, Cavet has been arguably the second-best men's moguls skier in the world behind the incredible Mikael Kingsbury for much of the past 10 years...

It was fun to catch up with @fisfreestyle to look back on my career and some good memories! 🤩 looking forward for the future, the best is still to come!

Speaking of look-backs, we've been running a series that features some of the very best moments of the 2019/20 World Cup season on our social media channels over the past 10 days or so. From Laura Peel (AUS) and Noe Roth (SUI) taking the wins at the final competition of the season in Krasnoyarsk (RUS) to earn what was for each of them their first career crystal globes, to Johanne Killi and Birk Ruud of Norway sweeping the top of the podium at the Air + Style in Beijing (CHN) , to Sandra Naeslund's insane crash and comeback in Sunny Valley (RUS), there were some truly amazing #topmoments worthy of revisiting.

The story behind this one is pretty simple: on February 1, 2020, Aaron Blunck put down one of the greatest halfpipe runs in freeski history, stomping five dubs, earning a score of 97.20 and taking the victory on home soil at Mammoth Mountain. If this doesn’t qualify as a #topmoment of 2019/20, nothing does. #fisfreestyle #freeski #halfpipe #aaronblunck

Meanwhile, the US Ski & Snowboard Team has some excellent in-depth season recaps up now. You can check out their Freeski season recap HERE, and expect their Freestyle recap coming up real soon.

Don’t miss our favorite freeski moments from the 2019-20 season every Wednesday on IG and FB. Up first, freeski slopestyle! Scroll ➡ and drop your favorite moment in the comments below.⤵ #oneteambestmoments

And finally, to wrap things up for this week, let's enjoy a little actual skiing, beginning with Lausanne 2020 Youth Olympic Games halfpipe gold medal winner Andrew Longino (CAN) showing that he's no slouch in the park either with this dreamy clip...

Unique perspective of @andrew_longino going to the moon 🌙 in Switzerland🇨🇭 . . . . . #fresstylecanadaski #freeskiing #ski #skiing #gopromax #goprohero8

Oh, one last thing - PREP YOUR SKIS BEFORE SUMMER STORAGE. You'll have to know some French to get the full tutorial from the inimitable Fanny Smith (SUI), but even if you don't parlé francais, you can still get the basic idea here...

C’est le moment de faire une beauté à ses skis et de les chouchouter un peu 🤗. Rien de mieux que de les préparer et de les farter pour qu’ils soient protégés et nourris tout au long des mois qui viennent. (Conseil pour les nuls : raclez-les seulement avant votre prochaine utilisation). J’ai fait cette vidéo plutôt basique pour qu’elle soit accessible à tout le monde🤗. En ce moment, j’ai un peu de temps à la maison alors j'en profite pour préparer toute une série de skis de loisirs (skis de piste, skis freeride, skis de randonnée, mon snowboard). Bon, pour ce qui est des miens, cela ne change pas grand chose, car j'ai pour habitude de les farter après chaque utilisation, sorte de déformation professionnelle 🙈 🤷🏼♀️😂. Mais pour ceux de ma famille et de mes amis, c’est un vrai passage au SPA💆‍♀️. Et pour ce qui est de mes skis de skicross (de compétition), c’est mon ski-man @roberthobbit1964 qui s’en occupe🤗. Cela faisait trois ans que je n’avais plus préparé autant de skis😅. Car avant d’avoir Roberto, j’ai toujours préparé moi-même mes skis, y compris pendant de nombreuses années en Coupe du monde. Alors j’espère que cette vidéo vous plaira et n’hésitez pas à commenter si vous avez des remarques ou questions 😀. . @redbullswitzerland @villarstourisme @essvillars @tele_villars_gryon_diablerets @tokowaxandcare @stoeckli_1935 . #service #ski #care #beauty #first #tutorial #wax #toko #youngagain #preparation #homeactivity #stayathome

Ok, that's it for now. Stay safe, stay sane, stay a couple metres away from everyone wherever possible, and we'll see ya here next week!

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