Every heard the phrase “you ski like a girl”? It’s a sexist insult that is thrown around among guys that really has no place in modern society. To tackle this, we’ve pulled together this article is about freeriding females showing us how it is done! We are sure most guys would be pleased to ski as well as these girls.
Freeride World Tour
Women are raising the bar in the world of freeriding. They’re skiing bigger mountains, taking greater risks and proving that female freeskiers are a force to contend with.
Various events and world tours have provided the ultimate arena for fearless athletes to test themselves against the best skiers on the planet. and this year the competition reached fever point with female freeriders better represented and receiving more coverage than ever before.
Three world tours – the Swatch Freeride World Tour, Freeskiing World Tour and The North Face Masters of Snowboarding – all combined. Bringing together the world’s best talent on the snow in one event.
Great respect for freeriding females
This type of event, and culmination of disciplines and talents, is helping girls push each other further. The events have increased the exposure to gain the respect female skiers and snowboarders deserve.
2012’s best female freeskier overall, Crystal Wright (USA), says that the merge has really helped raise the game for female competitors. With some of the best women in skiing and snowboarding now competing in the same event.
The added media attention that the tour received, will also help to give female riders the coverage they deserve, which means more sponsors and more main stream media appearances.
Ski like a girl: Movies
But it’s not only within the competitive world of freesking world tours that ladies are in the limelight. Extreme skiing films are also seeing a shift away from a previously male dominated genre, to one where women are gaining the recognition they deserve.
This year at the annual Banff Mountain Film Festival in Canada, world renowned Freeskier, Lynsey Dyer, was a key speaker at the snow sports screenings. An award winning downhill racer at 16, Lynsey gave up a scholarship in ski racing to pursue her passion for powder, and hasn’t looked back since.
On her first year on the Freeski World Tour, Lynsey won every competition she entered. Lynsey has appeared in five Warren Miller films and three TGR (Teton Gravity Research) films in total.
At Banff, as well as speaking about the increasing recognition and representation of women in snow sports, Lynsey presented her latest Warren Miller film. It documents her travelling through India to skiing trips in virgin powder in Kashmir’s untouched mountains – I wish I could ski like a girl!
Another one to watch, 2014 sees the release of ‘Pretty Faces’. It is an all-female ski film featuring Lynsey and a stack of other outstanding female skiers. They drop cliffs, ride deep powder and out-run avalanches just like the boys do.
