Top Five Fridays: March 22, 2024
Lead Image: While her season didn’t exactly go to plan, Shiffrin remained all smiles upon receiving her 2023-2024 World Cup Slalom Globe. Image: Mikaela Shiffrin on Facebook
#1: FIS World Cup - Shiffrin Takes Gold in Her Final Race of the Season:
Hello, and welcome to top Five Fridays, the March 22, 2024 edition! We’ve got a fun one for you this week as we bring you results from World Cup ski racing, an early preview of our 2025 ski test, news of an exciting new competition taking place in California, and a significant update from Cody Townsend’s The FIFTY series. While we always enjoy bringing you the news, this week’s lineup is certainly one of the more fun ones in recent memory and we’re chomping at the bit to get started. So without further ado, let’s get on with it!
First things first, let’s talk results. As you know, the World Cup is in its final week of action as both circuits have gathered in Saalbach, Austria for the final race in each discipline. As it happens, the schedule is perfectly split across this weekend, with the more technical slalom and giant slalom races having happened earlier this week, and the faster paced super g and downhill races scheduled for the next few days. As you might also recall, Shiffrin entered this stretch of events with the slalom crystal globe, a firm grasp of third place overall, and plans to only race in the final slalom event. While it was possible for Shiffrin to move up into second place overall, it would ultimately come down to Federica Brignone’s performance across the final events as well. Still, to even have a chance, Shiffrin would have to secure a high position in the slalom event. As it turns out, that’s exactly what she did. In the final event of the year, and in just her second race since returning from her injury, Shiffrin took home the gold for the second consecutive race. From there, Shiffrin moved into second place in the overall standings as she awaited the results of the giant slalom, a race in which Brignone was set to compete in.
Unfortunately for Shiffrin, her standing lasted just a day as Brignone rose to the occasion and took home the gold medal in that race. As such, Shiffin will almost certainly finish the year in third place. Also worth noting though, is that Paula Moltzan took home 6th in the giant slalom - a result that falls right in line with her consistent finishes all season long. As we start to shift into the off season, we’ll surely come across an article or two that highlight Moltzan’s growth this year and potential next season. When we do, you can bet that we’ll share it here.
On the men’s side of things, the final technical races of the year were a touch less satisfying. In the slalom race, no American men competed, while in the giant slalom race the best result was from River Radamus, who finished just outside of the points in 17th place. The good news for the men’s circuit though, is that their best two events are yet to come, and we fully expect to bring you more favorable results in a week, once the results from the super g and downhill races are in. Until then, you can view results from this week here, and see the schedule for next week’s events here.
#2: The 2025 SkiEssentials.com Ski Test is Complete, and What a Test it Was!
Brace yourself, for our most powder filled ski test yet. Coming Fall 2024.
Full disclosure: it took all we had to stay focused enough to get through that first highlight, as our second highlight this week is an extremely exciting one for us to share.
Earlier this week, we successfully held our 8th annual ski test! In fact, “successful” is actually an understatement, as this year’s test was indisputably our best one ever. For starters, we had incredible weather on Tuesday and Wednesday, as the snow gods blessed us with back to back powder days, complete with squalls, free refills, and even moments of sunshine. If you’ve read our test in recent years, you’re probably pretty aware that skis in our freeride and powder categories have never really gotten a fair shot at being tested. Most years we’re skiing slushed up groomers. This year though, we had perfect conditions for testing out some of these wider skis, truly putting “flotation” rankings to the test.
Of course it wasn’t just the weather this year that made this our best test yet. It was also bigger by every metric. This year, we welcomed over 25 ski and snowboard brands, who brought a cumulative 450+ models. Which, let’s take a quick moment to shout out all of the brand reps who hauled that much gear to Stowe for us. Keep in mind, 450+ models doesn’t just mean 450+ skis and boards. When you factor in size runs to make sure testers were on appropriate lengths, we’re talking well over 1,000 skis and boards were on site, not to mention their banners, tech stations, and other necessary gear. This might be the first time we’ve used this word on Top Five Fridays, but it was truly a “herculean” effort on the part of the brands that participated.
Additionally, we also want to thank the over 120 testers who showed up to help make this test possible. We’re well aware of how fun the test is to be a part of, but we’re also well aware that it can be both logistically challenging and exhausting to make happen. All of these testers, whether they’re part of the SkiEssentials and Pinnacle family, or are skiers we invite from our network of friends and family, had to make room in their schedules to commit to at least one day of hot lapping the gondola so as to test as many skis and boards as possible. While the test is an absolute blast for all involved, the task of testing roughly 10 skis a day means each tester takes at least that many runs. This year, with the powder turning to bumps throughout the day, it also meant knees, quads, hamstrings, and lowerbacks were also put to the test. For that, we thank all who participated and helped make the test what it is.
As always, we’ll be busy accumulating the data this summer, with plans to put out the best test possible sometime in late summer or early fall. When it comes out, we hope you’ll find it to be a useful tool to help you find the best ski for your specific ski personality. That’s all we’ve got for now, but we’ll be sure to send an update your way as soon as the test is released!
#3: Cody Townsend Announces the End of “The FIFTY” and Releases its Final Episode:
In other news this week, we got a somewhat surprising update from Cody Townsend - the man behind the ski mountaineering series, “The FIFTY”. Earlier this year, Ski Mag released an article titled, “Cody Townsend Should Quit “The Fifty” While He’s Ahead—and Alive.” When it was released, a lot of people on social media called out the article for essentially trying to tell a professional athlete how to live their life, and where to place their values. In the world of high consequence skiing, this dynamic, the debate between pushing the limits while avoiding catastrophe, is one of the most challenging aspects of the sport. It’s one that Cody Townsend, who is both a husband and a father, is undoubtedly aware of, and a concept that’s likely engrained deep within him. Now, we have no way of knowing if this delicate balance between risk and reward is the reason for the announcement, or if Cody listened to the author of that article’s pleas, but we do know this: The FIFTY as we know it is officially over.
This week, Cody posted an episode of The FIFTY, called, “46/50 - Bloody Couloir - The End.” In it, he starts by recapping the journey thus far, before announcing that it will be the final episode. In his explanation, he doesn’t specifically state the reasons for concluding the series, but does promise that his adventures in the mountains aren’t over. From here Townsend will be continuing to post on his channel, and will be continuing to attempt to complete The FIFTY challenge. Ultimately, that leaves us with a bit of an open ended story. While this episode is officially the last one, Townsend will remain active in his pursuits. That uncertain ending has led some to suspect that he’s saving the last four lines for more feature length projects, while others suspect that the remaining lines are simply more logistically challenging, making it hard for Townsend to commit to regularly releasing his edits. For our part, we tend to agree with the latter crowd, as even some of his more recent attempts have proven to be tough to complete, primarily on account of the weather. Regardless of the reasoning, we’re grateful to have watched Townsend’s adventures over the years, and are excited to see where he takes his skiing from here. While we await those answers, we highly recommend watching the final episode, which we’ve attached to this highlight.
#4: Is a New Competition Format Being Born? Sugar Bowl Announces New “Silver Belt” Contest, Pairing Slopestyle and Freeride Disciplines:
A shot from Sugar Bowl Resort, where the upcoming Silver Belt competition looks to challenge athletes on a course that blends slopestyle and freeriding elements. Image: Sugar Bowl Resort on Facebook
Lastly, rounding out our ski news coverage this week is the announcement of an exciting new event scheduled to go down at California’s Sugar Bowl resort next weekend, from March 29-31st. That event is the revival of the Silver Belt competition - an event that began in the 1940’s as a top to bottom downhill race of sorts. Now, decades later, it’s being brought back as a part freeride, part slopestyle event, with the aim of identifying the best all around freeskier. If you’ve read along with us throughout the year, you might remember our coverage of the Nendaz Invitational earlier this year. That event was also a combination freeride / slopestyle competition event of sorts, as it consisted of a low angle freeride venue with some handbuilt jumps and a rail for good measure. If you did catch that highlight, then you’ll also recall that it was one of our favorite events of the year as it paired athletes from both freeride and freestyle sides of the aisle, and asked them to duke it out. The results, of course, were highly entertaining.
From the sounds of it, the Silver Belt event looks to follow that same train of thought, only at a location here in North America. While we’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out, we’re both optimistic about its potential and excited to bring you a recap of the action upon its conclusion in a couple of weeks. If all goes well, we’d love to see this trend continue to evolve into more competitions that push the combined boundaries of freestyle and freeride skiing. To learn more about the upcoming event, we’ll direct you to the Sugar Bowl’s Instagram.
4.5: The 2024 Freeride World Tour Has Come to a Close After a Successful Stop in Verbier:
Before wrapping things up this week, we want to very briefly mention that the final stage of the 2024 Freeride World Tour was held in the early hours of the morning today, meaning that new FWT champions have been crowned. Due to the timing of the event, we didn’t have time to watch the replay prior to posting this week’s news recap. Rather than giving an underwhelming rehashing of results, we figured we’d push this update to next week, once we’ve have a time to watch and digest the action. So, you can look forward to our full recap next week, and check out the full replay for yourself in the meantime!