The Freestyle Rundown - July 17, 2020

Happy Friday and welcome to this week's edition of the Freestyle Rundown, where we'll be looking at a few of the freshest clips from Mt Hood to Zermatt, some hotness out of the southern winter from Cardrona to Buller, a half-dozen or so different approaches to dryland in the zones where the snow is a no-go, and much, much more.

But if we're talking about fun we may as well start things off with a man who's no stranger to the word, as Birk Ruud's been praciticing for his pro wrestling debut by dropping some bombs off the top rope of this bridge back home in Norway.

We've got a couple of questions though: 1) How does he manage to keep his slides on through the entirety of the double backie? And 2) How does his sweatshirt appear to be dry in BOTH shots?

Ok so halfway through writing this week's column we came across this clip from 14-year-old Ben Fethke. It's a never-been-done that he's calling the "Bone Scare," and we really don't know what to say or do about it except go "wow," put it at the top of the Rundown, and tell everyone to keep your eyes on Ben, because this young man is going places...

As you can see from the Ben Fethke clip, Mt Hood is absolutely firing right now, and there's been a deliciously steady stream of fresh clips for us to chew on from everyone's favourite volcanic playground - such as this mindbender from Hunter Hess shot by his coach (and Sochi 2014 Olympic bronze medalist) Mike Riddle. If the rider goes double and the filmer goes single, does that make it a triple?

Riddle also captured this smooth and boosty Devin Logan run, with D-Lo looking like she's in midseason form despite being off skis for the better part of four months up 'til now...

Mr. Hess then got behind the camera himself to shoot this beauty of a line by his homie Birk Irving, although Hunter doesn't try to match Riddle in the corked-filmer game, keeping things straight up and down while Birk does the work...

From one Hunter to another, as Hunter Carey put the reps in locking down some unnatty 12's. Fired up, indeed...

Speaking of "unnatty," Colby Stevenson was over in the Hood park doing weird-hard things, like these switch 50-50 variations...

And he was also doing this cool-hard thing, with a certain Torin Yater Wallace expertly taking care of the cinematography...

What's that you say? You want to see TYW actually SKIING and not just hear his disembodied voice saying "COUNT IT" from behind the camera? No problem, we gotchu...

Alex Ferreira's got a bunch of exceptional clips he's been rolling out in his time at Hood, but we wanted to slow things down for a minute and just enjoy a couple of photos af the Fireman in red, boosting hard under blue skies and sunshine...

Rumour has it that if you jump straight down the cone of the Mt Hood volcano you eventually end up shooting out on the other side of the world in New Zealand, which is exactly what we'll do right now as we take things way, way south of the equator.

Everyone knows that if you're talking NZL, you're talking Wells boys at some point, too. And, as you would expect, the toughest gang in town has been gettin' after it wherever the gettin' is good on the south island. Here's Beau James doing a little of what he does best...

Also sessioning the jump line in Cardrona this week? Hamish McDougall, who advises everyone to drop everything and get down there.

We wish we could, Hamish. We wish we could...

Jossi Wells, meanwhile, popped over to Trebel Cone for a little of this...

Before throwing on one of those big, sideways fat skis for a some of this...

Also keeping it tite at Trebel Cone is Finn Bilous, with this hyper-stylish edit. That right 7 tho...😍

Meanwhile, Nico Porteous was too busy getting pitted to bother getting up off the ground where we're used to seeing him. However, speaking for those of us stuck up in the northern hemisphere, we'll happily watch some slashy powpow action alllll day, no tricks needed...

Over in Australia it looks like the snowpack is still a little thin - in fact, it's still t-shirt weather up on the galcier. However, that isn't stopping the Team Buller Riders squad from getting some bump training in...

Let's jump back up north for a minute to check in on Zermatt, where conditions and the weather have been A+ as the Swiss ski cross team gets back in the saddle with their summer training camp. Think they're pumped? Fanny Smith's smile says "yes," and the drone shot shows why...

Meanwhile, over in Les 2 Alpes, GBR's Alannah Lawrie is getting some quality start section action in...

Also in Les 2 Alpes is Youth Olympic Games big air gold medallist Matej Svancer, absolutely ripping it...

The German freeski squad is on hand in Austria where the Molltaler glacier is the place to be right now, with a super fun-looking park set-up put together snowboarding's Clemens Millauer and friends...

The high-flyin' French moguls team wrapped up their training camp in Val d'Isere last weekend, but not before leaving us with this beauty set of photos...

The Finnish MO squad, on the other hand, has just begun their summer camp at Norway's Fonna resort, and by the looks of the snowpack there they could probably stay running bump lines for another couple of months if they wanted to...

Now let's take it back to some off-snow check-ins, because for real it's mid-July and for the most part even the most hardcore skier is probably finding ways to keep busy that don't involve putting on ski boots - like Andrea Limbacher, who wins this week's "Cute!" award for doing SUP with her pup...

Or her fellow SX competitor Marielle Thompson, as the Sochi 2014 Olympic champ has been birdie-hunting in Whistler...

Antoine Adellise is hanging out with Kevin Rolland, messing around on the trampoline and getting that slow-mo, underneath-the-tramp angle you never knew you needed until now...

Also on the trampoline but in a slightly more structured setting is Carol Bouvard, using the bungee ropes to lock down some new rotations...

And to round out this week's big-bounce section we've got Vincent Gagnier, who was hyper-spinning his way towards the year 2160 with this one. There is...a lot of torque on that landing, hey Vince?

No ropes and no nets here for Thibault Magnin - just a set of blades, a masonite kicker, and pit full of foam blocks to huck into...

Thib was actually taking trick requests via his Insta channel and really, the whole clip is worth watching as he rattles off an incredible number of bonkers requests in one session. Switch double frontflip superman? Whaaaat???

Danielle Scott has been in the more traditional setting of the gym for her off-season action. However, there's nothing traditional about whatever this move is. Although, maybe she was just using her legs to give a round of applause for all the wonderful content coming through the Rundown this week...🤔

Alright let's wrap this baby up on the right note, with GBR's Lloyd Wallace saying "whatever" to water ramp etiquette and penguin-sliding his way to last-hit glory on this week's Rundown...

As always, thanks for following along, have a fantastic weekend, and we'll catch you back here next week for plenty more of the good stuff on the Freestyle Rundown.