Freeski Crystal Globe and World Cup winners reunite in Engadin for 2025 World Championships
Mar 18, 2025·Freeski Park & Pipe)
After an action-packed World Cup season spanning seven countries and 16 events, the world’s top-ranked freeskiers will be bringing their competitive edge to the upcoming 2025 World Championships beginning this week in Engadin, Switzerland.
The Freeski program at the Engadin 2025 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships will begin with slopestyle qualifications on Wednesday 19 March from 8:55 Central European Time (CET).
Defending men’s slopestyle World Champion Birk Ruud (NOR) comes to Engadin after finishing fourth in the slopestyle World Cup standings following the fifth and final event in Tignes (FRA) on 14 March.
After becoming World Champion at Bakuriani in 2023, Ruud’s 2024/25 FIS Freeski World Cup season yielded mixed results but also featured two podium finishes, including outright victory at the Laax Open in January, and third place in Aspen, also in January.
U.S. skier Alex Hall will be the man to beat in slopestyle after the 26-year-old won the last World Cup event of the season in Tignes on 14 March to take the men’s slopestyle Crystal Globe. Hall is also the reigning Olympic slopestyle champion.
Engadin marks the first World Championships that Hall has contested since the 2021 edition in Aspen, where he was third behind fellow U.S. skier Colby Stevenson while Switzerland’s Andri Ragettli was World Champion.
Stevenson is not competing in Engadin, but Ragettli will be keen to make his mark after the 26-year-old finished second in the slopestyle World Cup rankings behind Hall. Ragettli also has two previous top-three finishes at the World Championships, including gold in 2021 and bronze at the previous edition in 2023.
Other contenders include big air Crystal Globe winner and 2025 X Games slopestyle gold medallist Luca Harrington (NZL), and X Games bronze medallist Mac Forehand (USA).
The battle for women’s slopestyle supremacy is led by reigning World Champion Mathilde Gremaud (SUI), who did not compete at the last three slopestyle World Cup events to focus on competition in Engadin.
On top of becoming World Champion in 2023 at Bakuriani, Gremaud was also runner-up at the 2021 edition, and finished fifth at her first World Championships in 2017.
Her main challenger in Engadin will be Italian teenager Flora Tabanelli as she contests her first senior World Championships after winning the overall women’s Park & Pipe Crystal Globe and the big air Globe. In slopestyle Tabanelli claimed her maiden World Cup victory in Stoneham (CAN) in February and will be keen to emulate that success at the World Championships.
Runner-up at the previous World Championships by a mere 0.25 points behind Gremaud, Canada’s Megan Oldham comes to Engadin after wrapping up the 2024/25 World Cup season just five points behind slopestyle Crystal Globe winner Tess Ledeux (FRA). The French skier will miss slopestyle competition in Engadin after crashing heavily during the Tignes World Cup big air final.
Oldham did not compete in Tignes but amassed one win and two runner-up results during the 2024/25 World Cup season, including second place ahead of Gremaud at the Laax Open in January.
While the big air and halfpipe start lists are yet to be confirmed at the time of publishing, most of the slopestyle field also boast a long list of big air achievements. This includes reigning men’s big air World Champion Troy Podmilsak (USA), his runner-up Lukas Muellauer (AUT), and Ruud who finished third behind Muellauer just days after becoming the slopestyle World Champion.
Matej Svancer (AUT) finished fourth in big air and 18th in slopestyle at Bakuriani, but the 2024/25 FIS overall men’s Park & Pipe Crystal Globe winner recently proved he is a freeski double threat after claiming his maiden slopestyle World Cup in Stoneham in February.
The Austrian also racked up two big air victories in October and February during the 2024/25 World Cup season.
However, Svancer will not be competing in slopestyle due to injury, and his fitness to start big air later in the Engadin 2025 program remains uncertain.
Another double threat in Engadin is the other half of Italy’s Tabanelli brother-sister power duo, 20-year-old Miro Tabanelli. Miro and Flora became the first brother and sister in FIS history to win at the same World Cup competition after each ended their season with big air victories in Tignes on 13 March. Miro also won the 2025 X Games big air gold medal in Aspen ahead of silver medallist Luca Harrington and bronze medallist Svancer.
Flora also won X Games gold in big air in Aspen, the youngest skier to do so and the first Italian skier to win X Games gold before her brother joined her in the winner’s circle.
At her first FIS Junior World Ski Championships in 2023, Flora won the big air event and was runner-up in slopestyle. At the 2024 edition, Flora again topped the big air field.
Big air competition in Engadin will begin with women’s qualifications on Wednesday 26 March, followed by men’s qualifications on Thursday.
Qualifications for the last of the freeski events, halfpipe, are scheduled to begin on Friday 28 March.
While the halfpipe start list is yet to be confirmed at the time of publishing, the men’s field will likely feature the 2024/25 men’s halfpipe Crystal Globe winner Alex Ferreira (USA) and defending World Champion Brendan Mackay (CAN).
Ferreira will be hoping to bring his competitive edge from the World Cup season to Engadin and improve on his third place finish from the 2023 World Championships behind Jon Sallinen (FIN) and Mackay.
The Canadian ended his 2024/35 World Cup season with one victory and one second place finish out of five starts, while Ferreira claimed his second consecutive Globe with five podiums, including two victories.
In women’s halfpipe, U.S. skier Hanna Faulhaber is the defending World Champion. However, a series of injuries have kept her largely absent from the World Cup circuit through the past two seasons.
Injuries have also plagued reigning halfpipe Olympic champion Eileen Gu (CHN), who secured three back-to-back halfpipe World Cup victories between September and December, as well as a slopestyle victory, before withdrawing from World Cup competition in February. The last time Gu competed in the World Championships was in 2021 in Aspen, where she walked away with the halfpipe and slopestyle titles.
Canada’s Rachael Karker was runner-up to Gu in 2021 and third behind runner-up Zoe Atkin (GBR) at the 2023 edition. At her World Championships debut in 2019, Karker narrowly missed the podium with fourth place.
After two editions of the World Championships where Atkin was third and second in 2021 and 2023 respectively, the 22-year-old skier is well within striking distance of a world title in Engadin after sharing the 2024/25 halfpipe Crystal Globe with Li Fanghui (CHN).
Both skiers finished the World Cup season with an identical results list – one victory, two second place finishes, and one fifth place result – to tie for the Globe for the first time in FIS Freeski World Cup history.
The halfpipe finals on Sunday 30 March will close out the Freeski program at the Engadin 2025 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships.
QUICK LINKS
2025 FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships data page (schedule, start lists, live scoring, results)
Video highlights (coming soon)
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