Freeride World Tour Finale: XTREME Verbier to Qualify Athletes for 2026 World Championships

The Freeride World Tour (FWT) will make its final climactic stop for the YETI Xtreme Verbier by Honda at Bec des Rosses on March 20, 2025. The stakes are high for athletes, not only because they’re competing for world titles but because this year, the finale will also qualify top athletes for the first-ever International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) Freeride World Championships in Andorra in 2026 — carving a path to freeride skiing and snowboarding’s Olympic debut.

For these athletes, this week’s YETI Xtreme Verbier by Honda is the first step toward competing in the Olympic Games.

“We have a five-year road to the Olympics,” Nikolas Hale-Woods, the founder and CEO of FWT, told GearJunkie. “And that’s quite a thrilling roadmap.”

This year is the FWT’s 30th anniversary. It will kick off at 10 a.m. CET with men’s snowboard, followed by men’s ski, women’s ski, and wrapping up with women’s snowboard. Each category will start in reverse ranking order to build “maximum suspense.”

Coverage starts at 9:45 a.m. CET — you’ll be able to watch the action live on the FWT website.

2025 YETI Xtreme Verbier by Honda: FWT Competition Details

The 2025 YETI Xtreme Verbier by Honda will feature 31 skiers and snowboarders competing on the 10,574-foot Bec des Rosses peak. The infamously steep mountain has a vertical drop of 1,991 feet and offers a buffet of steep couloirs, cliff drops, and highly technical lines for athletes to choose from.

Athletes are judged on their line choice, air and style, fluidity, control, and technique and given a score between 0 and 100 for each run. At the end of this week, the athletes with the highest total scores will be crowned champions.

To see the current ranking for all categories, check out the rankings page on the FWT website.

Friday, March 21, Saturday, March 22, and Sunday, March 23, will all feature live DJ sets, ski and snowboard tests, rider signing sessions, prize ceremonies, and other events. If you can attend in person, take the train to Verbier for a 40% discount on day passes.

FWT: 2026 FIS World Championships Andorra

The FWT Xtreme Verbier competition isn’t just the event’s grand finale, but it is also a qualifier for the first 2026 FIS Freeride World Championships in Andorra. Athletes will qualify for this event through a series of different competitions, including the FWT Pro, Challenger and Qualifier series, and Junior events. The qualification system is complicated, and a detailed list of the rules can be found in this PDF.

The World Championships Andorra will be held on a single competition day within a 6-day weather window between February 1 and 6, 2026.

According to Hale-Woods, the competition will be organized using the same model that the FWT currently uses. Competitors will get just one run in each of the four competitions. The only difference, he said, is that there will be 67 instead of 52 competitors. The event will also have significantly greater coverage. “But otherwise, it will be the same format, same panel of judges, same judging system,” Hale-Woods said.

Freeride Skiing & Snowboarding Go to the Olympics

This FIS World Championships is a critical step in this sport’s path to becoming an Olympic discipline as early as 2030 in the French Alps and 2034 in Salt Lake City. However, it still needs formal validation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to be set in stone. When asked, Hale-Woods was extremely confident that freeride skiing and snowboarding would soon get the official IOC stamp of approval.

“FIS has already filed the official proposal to include freeride as an Olympic discipline as of 2030,” he said, adding that the IOC has “a big interest in including freeriding because, just as surfing, skateboarding, and sport climbing, this is a sport that is exciting to the eyes of the world’s youth.”

He expects formal validation from the IOC executive committee in June, September, or December 2025. And he does fully expect it to come.

“We are talking to IOC, and we’re talking to not only the French 2030 Olympic [commmittee] but also the 2034 Salt Lake City Olympic [committee],” Hale-Woods said.

For freeride athletes, that’s huge news. He said it “could be a game-changer in some riders’ lives.”

Tune in on March 20 to see the FWT YETI Xtreme Verbier by Honda. It’s a chance to watch athletes take those first few leaps toward potentially competing in freeride skiing and snowboarding’s Olympic Games debut.