00:00Last year, tough start to the season with a couple crashes way below the cut and then finished really strong and ending up on the podium overall.
00:08So Liam Rivera said to me this morning before he headed up to hike to the top, he wants to start this season like he finished last year
00:15and get some early season jitters out of the way on this run with a really solid start.
00:20Yeah, and that's a good point. Even for a veteran, he's been on the tour, this is his fourth season.
00:24Even for a somewhat veteran like Liam, it's still the first run of his season.
00:28Every season's different and I love that intention setting. I think that's super important and excited to see what he chooses on this face, this beautiful Bassever face below him.
00:40So Liam riding regular foot, that means his left foot forward, getting a nice little air just to kick things off, get the judge's attention, grab them by the collar and say, watch this.
00:48I am about to throw down on this face as the young Verbier rider pushing through these difficult conditions at the top.
00:56You know, these riders are so good at snowboarding and so strong physically that you barely even see their legs rippling as now Liam really getting into the heart of things.
01:05Yep, finding his way into the meat of the feature land here above all kinds of features, taking an air up and over some rocks there into a tight couloir feature,
01:15dipping some speed off in those kind of powdery wind buff spots. Looks pretty nice.
01:19And then making his way down the ridge, finding another air, he's going to take it kind of cross court, go from that toe side to that heel side,
01:28and then controlling his speed because he's got something in mind. There we go. Wow.
01:32Yes, a huge backflip from Liam Rivera off the final feature and acing that landing. Perfect board control. Board right underneath him.
01:42Knowing exactly where to place your board in the landing when the snow conditions are like this is such a veteran thing to have in your tool belt.
01:51That was such precision mixed with just some reckless sand. And Liam, going for this extra credit feature down below.
01:57Nice. Getting in another, was that the method? I'm not, I don't want to call a wrong trick there on snowboarders,
02:04but getting in another feature, there's kind of a fun rock feature I think we'll see some athletes play with.
02:08But that was super impressive. I mean, he was a pilot. He put that landing gear down, executed very well, and he is in our finish corral.
02:16Liam Rivera, first run of the 2026 season.
02:19Listen, he set his intentions. He wanted to.
02:22That was my first run. Let's go.
02:25I think that was incredible.
02:26How was yours?
02:27It was fine, but not as good as yours.
02:30That's so sad.
02:31Really busy.
02:33That interaction is so key.
02:34So we see here, looking back at Liam's run, his first air, and I could tell from the get-go, he was focused on something else.
02:40He was controlling his speed, and he had his eyes set on something, and it was this backflip laid out, perfect style,
02:46and that bolt landing, really strong riding, control, perfectly executed, and he was on balance.
02:54Call him a ballerina. He's on balance.
02:55Here he comes down into this kind of extra credit knob.
02:58goes for a little tweak there, but that was extra credit.
03:04The judges were still thinking about that backflip.
03:06So, yeah, I'm impressed.
03:08I'm not a judge, but I'm impressed.
03:09I am impressed, and going with his intentions, finishing, starting the new season as he finished the last one with an extremely commanding performance down this phase.
03:19Liam Rivera putting on a clinic there of snowboarding as we see Shane score there.
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