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High risk, high reward snowboarding with big tricks on massive features make for a spectacular day in Revelstoke’s Montana Bowl.
REVELSTOKE, BC (March 14, 2026) — After a full venue reset from 40cm of fresh snowfall earlier this week, the YETI Natural Selection Revelstoke Finals delivered a truly spectacular showcase of big-mountain freestyle riding as the Tour’s top riders competed head-to-head in Revelstoke Mountain Resort’s Montana Bowl. Massive cliff drops, the biggest tricks landed in NST history, and fast, creative lines marked the day.
When the snow settled, it was Nils Mindnich and Zoi Sadowski-Synnott who rose to the top. Mindnich claimed his first Natural Selection Tour championship, after podiuming in 2024. Sadowski-Synnott fresh off another double Olympic medal performance secured her second NST title and fourth NST competition win in front of a crowd of more than 1,000 who snowboarded, skied and hiked in, alongside a global audience watching live on Red Bull TV.
The Selkirk Mountains delivered the classic Revelstoke experience, with bottomless cold snow, and bursts of bright alpine light. The mid-week storm fully reset the natural snow filled venue, allowing competition to run across both the east and west venues in Montana Bowl on both competition days.
“Snow conditions don’t get much better than this. It’s ideal conditions,” said Rice gazing back up to the powder coated venue under early evening light. “There’s very few events in the world that are harder to put on than something like this. It takes riders’ entire lifetimes of experiences to ride well on venues like this. Every one of these athletes and so many people contribute to this effort for our sport and our culture, and we are thrilled for the opportunity to keep taking this thing forward. And today was just incredible, an incredible day for snowboarding.”
Following Day One’s session format that narrowed the field from 24 riders to 12, the competition shifted to a head-to-head bracket format inspired by surfing.
The men’s competition began in the quarterfinals, while the women’s field opened in the semifinals. In each matchup, riders dropped two runs with their highest score counting toward advancement, creating high-pressure moments as athletes balanced freestyle progression with technical freeride line choice.
Judging was handled by a panel of experienced snowboarders using the Natural Selection Tour’s CREDO system, evaluating runs based on Creativity, Risk, Execution, Difficulty and Overall Flow across the natural terrain of Montana Bowl.
The women’s bracket opened with four riders who had already proven themselves earlier in the week: Šárka Pančochová, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, Billy Pelchat and Madison Blackley.
In the semifinals, 18-year-old rookie Billy Pelchat came out swinging with a cab 540 up top, showing composure beyond her years in her first Natural Selection finals appearance. A couple of small errors through the cliff line in the lower section left the door open, allowing Sadowski-Synnott to answer with a composed and technical run. Linking clean tricks throughout the venue, including a backside 720 at the top, her first time doing that trick in a Natural Selection event and second time a woman has landed a 7 at NST following Pančochová’s earlier this week. Then she tapped off the eagle’s nest and then came down and aired through some trees and over a cliffband at the bottom to earn a 90.3, the high score of the day at that point, and advance to the final.
On the other side of the bracket, Pančochová delivered a fast and fluid run featuring clean methods, straight airs, spins and smooth flow through the venue, earning an 80 to secure her place in the final ahead of Blackley.
The championship matchup saw Pančochová drop on the east side of the venue while Sadowski-Synnott chose the west. In the opening run, Sadowski-Synnott recovered from a small mistake near the top with a huge transfer off Eagle’s Nest and a soaring cliff drop, earning a 65.6 to keep the pressure on heading into the final runs.
Dropping last as sunlight finally broke through the clouds and illuminated Montana Bowl, Sadowski-Synnott delivered when it counted. Landing a big spin at the top into a massive flip before soaring over the lower cliff band, she put down a composed run for a 73.6, enough to secure the victory and her second Natural Selection Tour championship.
“There’s no other time, not even when you’re freeriding, that you get anything remotely close to this venue, and these hits. It is really fun in there,” said Sadowski-Synnott. “This contest is so different from any other contests that I do. I just came from the Olympics and spent a year preparing for that. And it’s so structured and very regimented and then to be at Natural Selection, is more creative and free flowing. It gives riders a chance to show their strength in terrain that’s different and unpredictable.”
Experience and focus paid off as Pančochová finished the day in second place sending big features on the 30 foot cliff drops on the east side of the venue, while Pelchat’s blending of freestyle tricks earned the 18-year-old rookie an impressive third-place finish in her Natural Selection debut.
The men’s quarterfinals opened with eight riders dropping into the freshly reset face: Nils Mindnich, Mark McMorris, Gigi Rüf, Torstein Horgmo, Matteo Massitti, Blake Moller, Jared Elston, and Brin Alexander.
Mindnich entered the event already proven in Natural Selection terrain. At the 2024 Natural Selection Tour final he finished second overall, highlighted by a standout run that included a switch backside 720, one of the most technical spins landed during that competition. This year he was determined to build on that.
The quarterfinals quickly showcased the range of styles in the field. Mindnich delivered one of the cleanest runs of the round, riding with precision while linking big spins and technical switch riding.
In another matchup, Matteo Massitti fell early in his run but salvaged it with a huge traveling 360 over the lower cliff band.
Elsewhere, Brin Alexander sent one of the biggest freeride lines of the round, charging into a massive double-cliff drop and landing clean for an 85.3. Mark McMorris answered with a huge, perfectly executed 1080, the first ever landed in the big, natural features on a Natural Selection venue. The judges rewarded the slopestyle icon with a big score, but it left him just short of Brin.
The matchup between Jared Elston and Torstein Horgmo pushed the limits of the venue. Horgmo stomped a massive cliff drop that few riders would even consider, while Elston stomped a double flip but lost the landing off a huge cliff feature, allowing Horgmo to advance as first-round scores held.
Another upset came when Blake Moller rebounded from a lower first score with a second-round run that blended freeride lines and freestyle tricks, earning an 88 to move into the semifinals over last year’s second place finisher Austria’s Gigi Rüf who brought a cool, confidence and big tricks to all of his lines this week.
The level rose again in the semifinals. Horgmo opened with a powerful run combining big tricks at the top and aggressive freeride lines through the lower cliff zones for a 90 that appeared nearly unbeatable.
Moments later Mindnich dropped and raised the bar, starting his run with a buttery 180 on to the lip and a switch back 720 off, into the switch backside 360 tapping the powder pillow on the eagle’s nest mid spin, then finishing with buttery airs and a big method to earn a 95, the top score of the day for the men’s field. He said it was a dream line that he’d been thinking about this whole season, and was enough to hold off Horgmo.
In the other semifinal, Brin Alexander charged into the venue riding off the wall of the Temple of Stoke, attacking the terrain with speed and landing a massive cliff drop cleanly to earn a 92, the second highest men’s score of the day.
Blake Moller fought back with a massive cross-court transfer across the East Face and attempted an even bigger barrel roll gap in his second run, but a crash near the bottom ended his push for the finals.
The final came down to Nils Mindnich and Brin Alexander, two riders representing very different approaches to big-mountain freestyle.
Alexander opened with a huge double backflip, setting his big, bold, high-energy tone immediately. Mindnich countered with a technical and stylish run, dropping switch into a backside 540 before floating a massive method across a transfer feature on the east side of the venue. The run earned an 82 and gave Mindnich the early lead.
With everything on the line in the final runs, both riders pushed harder. Mindnich once again combined switch takeoffs, huge spins and fluid line choice to secure the win and. While Brin’s score improved in his second run, Mindnich’s first round score held and he claimed his first Natural Selection Tour championship.
“The 95 [highest scoring run of the day] came from a run that I had been kind of envisioning on qualifiers day, and every time that I would go in to do a run, and this goes back years, I would have a pretty clear vision of what I wanted to do, and then maybe I would kind of back off and play it safe. Then that 95 run came about because I felt like I didn’t have a whole ton to lose, and I just went for it.”
“If you look back to 2021 in Jackson, I got the fourth highest scoring run of the day, and I had two 360s. And now, if you’re not doing a seven, a nine, trying a double cork, hitting, like, a 50 foot cliff, you might not even make the cut,” Mindnich explained. “I wanted to lean into my strengths, and I knew that my advantage is feeling super comfortable going switch, and not only is it kind of fun, because it lets you experience the course in a different way and have different moments on every feature, but it also scores well and helps set me apart from the crowd.”
Alexander finished second after delivering some of the biggest and boldest freeride lines of the competition for the mostly Canadian crowd.
Watch the full replay of the YETI Natural Selection Revelstoke Finals on Red Bull TV here!
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