New Zealand’s top Freeskier Jossi Wells has reinforced his status as one of the world’s top freeskiers, taking bronze in slopestyle at the last stop of the U.S. Winter Dew Tour in Tahoe, California.

Wells, 18, Wanaka, went into the slopestyle event to win and came out with what was described as the best competition run in his career. Unfortunately Wells was edged into third position with higher scoring runs from winner Tom Wallisch, USA, and silver medallist Alex Godbout, Canada.

Scoring 90.50 out of a possible 100, Wells’ progressive run featured a sequence of tricks off urban rails and enormous jumps including a switch double cork 1080 nose mute, an exceptionally technical trick, where the skier takes off backwards, spinning 3 rotations whilst dropping the shoulder so the feet are higher. After 1.5 rotations the skier drops the shoulder again to gain further momentum to finish the spin. simultaneously, the skier grabs the tip of the left ski with the right hand.

“I was really happy with my performance,” said Wells. “It was the first double cork I have attempted in competition.”

Above: Jossi Wells – Image www.allsports.com

Wells’ younger brother Byron, 16, Wanaka, and teammate Lyndon Sheehan, 19, Wanaka, only just missed out on a spot in the halfpipe finals, securing 14th and 15th respectively in the prelims.

Although pulling out of the second tour stop due to injury, Wells finished the tour overall with a joint third position on the final score ladder for the Dew Tour Cup.

The Winter Dew Tour is in its inaugural season after three successful years as a summer-only tour. The winter tour is regarded as perhaps the most competitive series in winter action sports.

Similar to the Dew Tour’s summer competition structure, the Winter Dew Tour is based on a cumulative points system as the top snow athletes battle it out for a piece of the $1.5 million prize purse and the chance to take home the Dew Cup at the conclusion of the season in February.

The four-day competition is the last of three stops of the Winter Dew Tour that features men’s and women’s freeskiing and snowboarding disciplines.

All athletes are members of the New Zealand Freeski Association National Team and train and compete with the New Zealand Winter Performance Programme.

Snow Sports New Zealand (SSNZ) is the official governing body and National sports organisation representing all snow sports in New Zealand. The Freeski Association of New Zealand is a member of SSNZ.

U.S. Winter Dew Tour

The Winter Dew Tour consists of three major, multi-sport events spanning across the country, with a cumulative points system, and a $1.5 million competitive purse. Each event features men and women’s snowboard (superpipe and slopestyle), and men’s freeskiing (superpipe and slopestyle). At season’s end, the overall point’s leaders in the six disciplines are crowned year-end champions and awarded the prestigious Dew Cup. As part of an Alli property, key lifestyle elements compliment the competitions at each Tour event including the Festival village, specialty competitions, and live cutting edge music. The Winter Dew Tour is broadcast live on NBC Sports with additional competition and lifestyle broadcasts on MTV, MTV2 and USA. The Winter Dew Tour is also distributed on Fuel TV, Universal HD, Rush HD, and internationally on Eurosport, Fox Australia, Extreme Channel and Allarco superchannel. Winter Dew Tour partners include Mountain Dew (tour title sponsor); Toyota (event title sponsor). Associate partners include Ball Park, Nike 6.0, PlayStation®, Wendy’s, and Verizon Wireless. More information can be found at www.allisports.com.

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