Snowboarding
Norway’s Ståle Sandbech wins on his rookie appearance, while Canadian Spencer O’Brien takes it for the women. Here's what went down at Travis Rice's Natural Selection Tour in Revelstoke.
Progression took centre stage in the fifth year of the Natural Selection Tour, where snowboarding’s biggest names went head-to-head alongside hungry rookies eager to make their mark. A heavy reset of new snow coated the feature-packed Montana Bowl in the backcountry adjacent to Revelstoke Mountain Resort, setting the perfect stage for it to all go down.
01
Qualifiers: Untouched powder and non-stop highlights
Day one introduced a new qualifying format, designed by Natural Selection Tour founder Travis Rice to push riders to deliver the best runs of their lives – and it delivered. Canadian rookie Brin Alexander set the tone, dropping in first with deep, untouched powder turns to a stylish tweaked melon poke, kicking off two days of nonstop highlights. Qualifiers saw the field of 24 whittled down to 12 featuring stylish freestyle tricks to massive big mountain lines including 2024 NST Champion Mikey Ciccarelli’s confident switch backside 540 and Nils Mindnich’s massive frontside 900. Elena Hight came through fearlessly dropping a 9m (30ft) cliff face and Jared Elston fired up the crowd with a cliff drop backside 360. The action did not stop.
Austrian snowboarding legend Gigi Rüf was on one throughout qualifiers, earning the final spot advancing out of Session One and locking out two NST favourites, two-time NST champion Travis Rice and Bend, Oregon’s Ben Ferguson.
There was no rest for the weary as Friday’s Qualifiers flowed right into Saturday’s Finals with the action moving to the adjacent 'Selector Venue'. This even spicier mountainside saw riders pick through sections with names like Bar Fight and Hell Flute, with two notable cliff faces, The Brick and The Pyramid, as the site of incredible NST action.
The 12 advancing riders picked apart the venue piece by piece, spinning off enhanced features, pointing it through chutes, blasting cliffs and dropping pillow lines to the crowd’s roaring approval.
02
Women's final: O’Brien and Hight face off as the snow piles up
The riders battled it out head-to-head culminating in the final round that saw Mother Nature amplifying the snowfall as the four remaining riders raced the incoming storm. In the women’s field, it was a showdown between two accomplished competitors: Canada’s Spencer O’Brien and 2022 NST champ Elena Hight. O’Brien started with a huge Cab 540 up top flowing through her run, Hight answered back with a massive frontside 720.
“This win is pretty up there,” said O’Brien, commenting on how this victory compares to other major titles in her snowboard career. “To be in the final with Elena, my friend of 20 years, that was freaking awesome.”
O’Brien credited Rice and the whole NST crew for setting the stage for the progression on display this week, saying, “The attention to venue and snow quality and conditions and the care for the athletes. The event really provides a space where people want to send it and do their best. I've never seen a more insane display of snowboarding than yesterday, watching the men. It was just absolutely mind blowing. Props to everybody here – it was such an exceptional show and an amazing week for snowboarding. It's really a big honor to be a part of it.”
Natural Selection Tour really provides a space where people want to send it and do their best.
But it was O’Brien’s top-to-bottom prowess that got the judges’ attention – and Rice’s too, who observed that the NST female competitors stole the show throughout the event, saying, “the women took the attention with a couple of the best lines that I have ever seen in competition.”
The women took the attention with a couple of the best lines that I have ever seen in competition
03
Men's final: Battle of the NST 'rookies'
The men’s final heat saw a pair of NST rookies go head to head, but they were no contest rookies – Olympic slopestyle silver medalist, Sandbech, faced off against the American 2022 Freeride World Tour Champion Blake Moller.
Sandbech continued his 540 blitz adding in a transition finder 360 across the lower cliff face. Moller went for a final Hail Mary 720 cliff drop, just missing the landing, but leaving the crowd frothing as the contest came to a close with Sandbech the new men’s 2025 NST champ.
Sandbech on NST: trusting instincts over practice
Sandbech compared his competition strategy at NST versus a typical slopestyle contest, saying, “You don't get to practice your runs, you look at it on photos, and visualize how it might feel and look out for all the hazards.” But due to all of the factors in this natural setting, when it comes time for your run, he says, “You have to turn on your instincts and go spontaneous.” And he did just that. On finals day he said his strategy was to just put down his runs, and then keep building on those runs, and he says, “It worked out. I stayed on my feet.”
You have to turn on your instincts and go spontaneous.
Sandbech, who stood on the podium at the Olympics, shared how honored he was to compete among many of his heroes. Asked for his feelings about this win, Sandbech, fresh off his champagne celebration at the bottom of the venue, said it hadn’t sunk in yet: “I think when I get down I’m going to be like, Whoa!”
04
Results and highlights
At the contest’s end, the consensus was that the NST had once again progressed the competitive game, with highlights worthy of a feature release, which can be watched now on-demand and for free on Red Bull TV.
Men’s 2025 Natural Selection podium:
- Ståle Sandbech (NOR)
- Blake Moller (USA)
- Gigi Rüf (AUT)
Women’s 2025 Natural Selection podium:
- Spencer O’Brien (CAN)
- Elena Hight (USA)
- Šárka Pančochová (CZE)
.png)
