00:00Verbier, you are immediately cemented as freeride legend.
00:04You're in the Hall of Fame automatically when you win the Verbier Pro.
00:07But Bacchera Barrette is the backdrop today.
00:11Three seasons on the freeride world tour.
00:12That's his best finish by far.
00:15Wei Qian, you know, everyone was waiting for that first win
00:18and finally seeing him put it all together.
00:21He was a little bit snakebit last year in a couple other events.
00:23But he is fired up to get things going.
00:26And Wei Qian Hou now kicking things off here in Spain.
00:30Yeah, absolutely.
00:31It was so evident that there was more for Wei Qian to give.
00:34And it was such a pleasure to see it happen on the Beck face.
00:38Coming off that warm-up air with a nice stylish shifty.
00:42Again, moves like that actually second nature to someone like Wei Qian.
00:46And he's just cruising through this really challenging snow.
00:50And he's going to take a fall line approach.
00:52Yeah, such a smooth skier.
00:54Always making the difficult look easy.
00:56Super quick feet.
00:57Spinning 360 into the core.
00:58Perfect landing.
01:00Getting speed back under control.
01:02And another 360.
01:03So Wei Qian Hou moving quickly through this venue.
01:07He's got another nose lined up.
01:09Popping off there with the shifty.
01:10Looking very similar to his compatriot.
01:12But with a different finish.
01:14Big backflip for Wei Qian Hou.
01:16Perfect execution.
01:18The cleanest run we've seen so far.
01:20We saw rollercoaster runs from the other riders.
01:23But Wei Qian just putting it down top to bottom perfection.
01:28Yeah, we needed to see that out of these men.
01:30We had not seen a clean run yet.
01:31And that backflip landing was perfect bolts.
01:34Very, very officially stomped in my opinion.
01:38And those 360s, again, similar line to Marcus.
01:40But those 360s were way cleaner.
01:42So Wei Qian's feeling good.
01:44And to be honest, the competitors have left some doors open so far.
01:47So Wei Qian just walked through one.
01:48Oh, all the freeride friends down there cheering for Wei Qian.
01:54Big hug for the man in the hot seat as we go back to the top, Amy, for this run.
01:59Nice, clean start for Wei Qian Hou.
02:01Yep.
02:02Warm-up up top.
02:03And there we have him going into his first 360.
02:05Good air style.
02:06Just puts it right on his feet.
02:07And that's a narrow landing.
02:09That's a little coulard.
02:09He's landing in.
02:10Shuts down speed so he can get over.
02:12He had another 360 before this.
02:14Now he has that straighter with the tweak.
02:15And he's setting himself up kind of laser-focused on this laid-out, stylish backflip right to bolts.
02:22So the control is through the roof here on the judging criteria.
02:26You see these green lines maxed out because that was a clean, clean run.
02:30It had all of the elements that judges are looking for.
02:33So Wei Tian Hou, bravo.
02:35Full throttle run there.
02:37Wei Tian Hou spending his summers racing on the Enduro World Cup.
02:40So the fitness is definitely not a problem for this man as he's just laid down the gauntlet for the rest of the ski men's field.
02:47We're going to see what the judges do with it.
02:48Yeah, I know.
02:49God damn.
02:50Yeah.
02:51Wasn't it very good?
02:54The last route worked really well, though.
02:57Yeah, dude, sorry.
02:58You got fucked by yours, eh?
03:01Good Canadian conversation there between the two Whistler boys.
03:04Max Hitzig now.
03:05He's standing up.
03:07He doesn't feel comfortable in that hot seat because he's seen it.
03:09He knows.
03:10He knows that his run wasn't clean, and so he knows what he's about to see.
03:14Judges are still going to really be meticulous here because there's a lot more skiers to drop,
03:20and the judging only gets harder the more skiers that go down.
03:23Well, and if I've learned anything in my time with the Freeride World Tour,
03:26it's never to speculate on what the judges are going to do.
03:28They have the high-powered binoculars where we're just watching with our eyes.
03:32So the detail, the level of detail that they pick up, and they are ultimate detail-oriented people.
03:39Every single element of every run.
03:41So no predictions here, but definitely a solid run for Wei Tian.
03:44And as he and Hitzig both anxiously just hang in here.
03:51So the score coming in now, the score to beat, 84-3-3 from Max Hitzig.
03:55He drops up above, and Wei Tian Ho taking over the hot seat from Max.
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