UPDATE: Due to safety reasons, the Axamer Lizum 3* competition has been post-poned until March 14 as the organizers chose to put safety first, likely due to the low snow pack as Cooke had mentioned earlier. No word from Cooke yet if he will re-register.
There has been a bit of a delay for Nelson skier Trace Cooke, 19, who is in Austria for Open Faces Axamer Lizum, his first Freeride World Qualifier competition of 2015 that takes place on January 10. On Thursday, he was anticipating the arrival of his ski bag as it did not make it to Cooke’s final destination. He was hopeful that it would be delivered that day, adding he has borrowed gear from a friend from Chamonix.
Open Faces Axamer Lizum is the first 2015 competition in a series and is located near Innsbruck, Austria.
“The snowpack is looking pretty low for the resort, “ said Cooke. “The venue looks cool with lots of big features and technical cliffs and shoots. However, there are a lot of sharks due to the low snowpack (sharp rocks on the take offs, landings and openings). Should be an interesting couple of days!”
By Friday, Cooke had rented ski gear and was able to get a better look the Hochtennboden face he will ski this weekend.
"It's a very low snowpack!" he wrote to the Star. "All the cliffs look very big with not much of any take offs, there's going to be a lot of pre-hopping (lifting of before the end on the cliff/jump). The top of the venue looks like it has several different options with shoots and skinny strait lines. And it opens up with a couple more rocks and hits at the bottom. Despite the low snowpack the snow, however, is skiing pretty well. It's very spring like- sugary in places, but heavily wind affected!"
The Freeride World Qualifier is a tour of independent freeride events all around the world, with one unique system of points and judging. The FWQ is the way to qualify for the Swatch Freeride World Tour by The North Face.
After this weekend, the series will take Cooke to Verbier, Switzerland for a week of competitions starting January 17. Cooke is currently ranked 22nd and is one of the few Canadians participating in the 2014/15 series, which started in the spring of 2014 and will end April 2015.
The 2015 FWQ ranking will take the three best results of each rider during the 2014/2015 season. Riders can attend an unlimited amount of events..
This is Cooke’s second season skiing in the FWQ. To see a summary of his 2103/14 season check out www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lynbl90br_Q or visit www.tracecooke.com.