Stop 2 of the Natural Selection tour, the TAE Natural Selection at Baldface, airs tomorrow!
From the Natural Selection desk:
Who will come out on top, as fourteen of the best all-mountain, freestyle snowboarders in the world go head-to-head at stop two of the 2022 Natural Selection Tour?
Nelson, BC (March 14, 2022)—Tune in this Wednesday, as 14 of the world’s best snowboarders drop into the revered Scary Cherry venue for the second stop of the Natural Selection Tour, the TAE Natural Selection at Baldface. The three-and-a-half hour contest will run “as live” on NaturalSelectionTour.com on March 16, 2022 starting at 9AM PT / noon ET / 5PM CET (central europe), with the winners revealed at the end of the broadcast.
Snowboarders from throughout the sport—halfpipe and slopestyle competitors, to dedicated big mountain freeriders, and backcountry free stylists–go head-to-head in competition including on the women’s side Hana Beaman (USA) Elena Hight (USA) Marion Haerty (FRA) and Robin Van Gyn (CAN) and for the men Jared Elston (USA), Dustin Craven (CAN), Torstein Horgmo (NOR), Sage Kotsenburg (USA), Ben Ferguson (USA), Mikkel Bang (NOR), Blake Paul (USA) and Travis Rice (USA). At Baldface Lodge, the top half of finishers from Jackson are joined by 2021 YETI Natural Selection at Jackson Hole winners Mark McMorris (CAN) and Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (NZL), who were invited to rejoin the tour following their Olympic bids.
The Scary Cherry venue at Baldface is a freerider’s dream with 80 massive natural and wooden drops, kickers and other features spread throughout the famously powder-coated, 40°-plus slope. Baldface Lodge, set in British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountains outside of Nelson, is a snowboarding mecca with 500+ inches of annual snowfall laid across 32,000 acres of open bowls, peaks and perfectly spaced trees. The winner at the Tour’s second stop will take home a new model year 2022 Ski-Doo.
During the show, riders celebrate the opening ceremonies in a very Canadian way…curling in Nelson, BC. Then they head up to Baldface Lodge to square off in lumberjack games, which determine the order in which they get to choose to drop in the course on the competition day.
Judges, Sandy MacDonald (CAN), Chad Otterstrom (USA) and Connor Manning (USA), score the runs in real time using “CREDO” that was created by the Tour’s COO Liam Griffin. CREDO focuses on: creativity, risk, execution, difficulty and overall flow, speed and control. These five criteria will be used throughout the Tour to evaluate a run from top to bottom in its entirety. Each run is scored from 0-100 with an emphasis on the whole run and recognizing what tricks are being performed at the highest standards for that specific heat or round.
New for 2022, the Natural Selection Tour will be using a Triple Crown-style format to determine the overall Tour Champion. In this format, each stop of the Tour will have equal weighting and a stand-alone winner. The points will be tallied by finish at each stop: first place = 1 point; second place = 2 points; third place = 3 points. The rider with the lowest score at the conclusion of the three stops will be the overall Natural Selection Tour Champion. So hypothetically, if a competitor places third in Jackson, first in BC, and fifth in AK that rider’s final combined score would be nine (3+1+5). If a tie happens, the Championship tie-breaker is based on which rider had the better finish in the final event in Alaska.
Like-minded partners are coming together to help develop and support the Natural Selection Tour. TAE is the title sponsor of the Baldface Lodge stop. YETI is both the title sponsor of the Jackson stop and the sustainability partner for the entire Tour. Backcountry returns as the Tour’s Official Outerwear and retail partner. Other tour partners include Red Bull, GoPro, Fuel Off-Road, Visit Jackson Hole, Thule, Burton, Fast, Conservation International, Pacifico, BetterHelp, DraftKings, Carnal, Ski-Doo, Oakley, Dakine, TAE and Rocky Mountain Yeti, along with host venues Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and Baldface Lodge.
Through the Industry Alliance marketing platform, endemic brands are able to directly support the events and their team riders competing on the Natural Selection Tour. Alliance members including 20+ of the biggest names in snowboard, boot, binding, outerwear and eyewear will receive brand presence on streaming, broadcast and at the events, along with access to content and social assets from the Tour for marketing their team riders.