00:00There is quite a lot of pressure on me making the right call.
00:06There will be no competition today.
00:08The riders are into me and then the Freire World Tour organisation want the competition to run.
00:14The sport is extreme enough in itself. We don't need to take more risk with conditions.
00:21There are more ways thinking riders first and their safety.
00:25The Freire World Tour has been here for years and years and the reason it's still here is because it's not pushing the limits.
00:41Looking back at the first three events of the season, it's crazy how much the difference of weather we had.
00:50It was very warm or wet and ultra cold, probably one of the coldest moments I had.
00:57Minus 20, beginning of the week and every day we lose another couple of degrees.
01:03Very, very cold.
01:07So when we spend the whole day on the mountain, a lot of time we have to hike.
01:11Then we stay, we prepare the platform for the start.
01:14You've been sweating and then you're going to be cold.
01:17So for the team preparing, they're going to spend a few days in the mountains, sometimes in bad weather.
01:22The most technical equipment is key.
01:25Back on the summit of Simcaron.
01:28Conditions are pretty extreme.
01:31The job of a commissioner looks fun.
01:34I mean, you're in a mountain before the athlete shows up, you're with the guide.
01:42It is fun, but it is also stressful because you're going to be checking the face.
01:47So sometimes you find yourself in situations where it's not that fun and that's why then we decide to close certain areas of the mountain.
01:54But sometimes you also get a really good power to run.
01:56The key responsibilities before leading to a competition are, first of all, finding the venue.
02:05Going over the resorts and trying to get the best possible venue for the riders.
02:12So we need a mountain that offers different options so that everybody can choose a different line.
02:17Everybody can express himself with his own style.
02:19If it's just a couloir and everybody has to ride the same couloir, it doesn't make for an interesting competition.
02:24Even if nowadays I'm not going to ride as good as those guys have been doing it,
02:29I put myself as a rider, which I was, and just thinking, would I ride this venue?
02:35Would I ride those lines?
02:37Here we are, Tugdaba.
02:39Loads of features.
02:40It's going to be an amazing show.
02:41Looking forward to see what the riders can put up here.
02:47Before competition day and pretty much a week in advance,
02:50we are non-stop in contact with a professional meteorologist.
02:55This will be linked to the mountain guides who are checking there is no avalanche danger.
03:00What we're aiming is to secure the venue.
03:03Once we secure the venue, we'll put some posts like we did last year.
03:08We're going to first do the decibel on the south venue and then on the venue itself.
03:13At the moment we're checking all the different bombing areas that we need to try.
03:23So checking every sensitive area just to make sure that we cover the whole venue.
03:29And that every rider will be safe when he'll go down afterwards.
03:32Once we've selected the venue, everything is ready, we have a face check.
03:43Usually the day before, we have a riders meeting and we send four runners so that everybody can see a couple of runs down the face.
03:51Drop in!
03:52The commissioners will be with the athletes, getting feedback from the forerunners, answering questions and again, giving as much information as we can.
04:03We take a decision if this is under par and if this is no longer rideable.
04:09There's the obvious question coming to us. Do you think this is going to be a winning line?
04:13That's the easy answer. We don't know. We don't know until we see you ride it.
04:16But of course, we try to be really transparent with the riders. We're not trying to sell them powder if it's not powder.
04:24We're going to tell them, look, this is crusty snow or this is sun affected snow.
04:29Most of the takeoff or the landing, we're gone.
04:32There's so many things that can make a competition day perfect or not.
04:36Spitting a gun, but coming up short on the rotation.
04:40Our job is to give them as much information so that they have a safe comp the next day.
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