No more women on the Freeride World Tour! Very disappointing, but for some reason not hard for me to believe. Last year was my first and only year on the tour and I thought it was one of the most amazing competition experiences I had ever had. The only problem was the lack of support that I felt with the women especially compared to the Subaru Freeskiing Tour. When I won that tour in 2009 Julien Lopez who won for the guys and I had the exact same amount of press and exposure it was so awesome to be treated equal with the guys champion. My first competition in Chamonix was exciting, nerve racking and intimidating. I definitely never felt completely welcome as a female and I already thought it was a little ridiculous that the men and women were skiing the same venue spending the same amount of money and the men won $8,000 for first and the women only won $2500. I do not think we should be completely equal with prize money, because there is more of the guys , but I think we should be a lot closer in earnings.
The women had to go second in Chamonix which at first I did not mind because there was a lot of slough management because of the temperature changes. I had picked an aesthetic line that I knew I had to do, but knew by the time the ladies ran it would not be the best snow. I went for it anyway and landed in hardened avy debris, I was bummed but excited I had skied that line. When the guys were running there was a helicopter flying and filming. Approximately a hundred journalist supposedly were just there for the men. When the women started all the press and helicopter left! It felt so weird to me like I was not really competing. I know we do not ski like the guys, but we are all pushing ourselves and the level for women. In Squaw this year it was some of the most amazing women skiing I had ever seen. Everyone was throwing down on the same guys lines. The winning girls line was the same as the guys. The women had to go second again on a small venue that we should have at least been able to go first for one of the two runs. I crashed twice and the second run the air I had taken had been so bombed out by the men that I landed one leg in one of their bomb holes one out and knocked myself out for second and definitely could not walk for 3 days after. The point is this is regressing our sport as women when last year I thought our sport had taken such a huge step on both tours. The Subaru tour still has amazing amount of competition and I hope women will still continue to push themselves and want to try or continue competing!
