It was an antipodean festival at the Freeride World Tour in Fieberbrunn, Austria overnight as Kiwi Craig Murray took gold in the men’s ski competition, Australian Michaela Davis Meehan took silver in the women’s snowboard and Kiwi Hank Bilous rounded it out with bronze in men’s ski.
This is a back to back podium for the Aussie snowboarder, Davis Meehan, after taking top honours in the last event in Andorra where she claimed first place. The silver in the Austrian stop on the tour made it three podiums from four events for the Newcastle local who now has two silvers and a gold.
She is the first Australian to win a Freeride World Tour (gold in Andorra) and the most successful Australian on the tour, ever.
“I just try to find a cool line and ride it the best I can at each event” said Davis Meehan after her impressive run on an equally technically impressive face.
“I had most of my run sorted including the chute, but I got a couple ideas for some hits after watching the snowboard men.”
French snowboarder Marion Haerty won the event in Austria and took her third Freeride World Champion title with it.
Davis Meehan has now qualified for the Verbier Xtreme finale event in two weeks time on the famous Bec des Rosses steep face, home to the premiere event of the big mountain season. She has also secured her place on the Freeride World Tour for 2020/2021.
“I’ll still be going for the win in Verbier!” said Davis Meehan knowing the overall title has now been claimed early by Haerty.
“But maybe I can push myself a bit harder knowing there is not as much on the line. I have been down it (Bec des Rosses) once on really bad snow. So am looking forward to hopefully some pow. It’s super steep and looking forward to seeing how I go. For the approach I’ll just do what I always do, have some fun and try to make it look good.”
Meanwhile in the men’s ski event, Kiwi Craig Murray won gold with one of the most “all time” ski runs in the history of the competition.
Murray, has an impressive freeride history with time on the New Zealand Junior Freeride Tour, Freeride World Junior Tour (he won the overall title) and the Freeride World Qualifier Tour for the 2016-2017 season before becoming the youngest person to qualify for the Freeride World Tour, at the age of 18 in 2018.
Wanaka local, Hank Bilous, took third. Four Kiwi men are now in fourth (Murray), fifth (Bilous) and sixth (Marshall) spots on the leaderboard for this season with Blake Marshall taking the fourth place in the Fieberbrunn event.
