The 2024 Natural Selection Tour came to a conclusion on Thursday, April 4th with the release of the Yeti Natural Selection Selkirk Tangiers broadcast. The finals day was filmed in March, the day after NST’s Revelstoke event, and released as-live last week.
A quick reminder of how we got to finals day. Natural Selection Duels went down in January and early February, through which two women and five men (four Duels winners plus a “lucky loser”—the highest scoring rider in addition to the Duels winners—who advanced as well) advanced to contest day inbounds at Revelstoke for a week-long weather window to hold two days of competition.
In Montana Bowl on day 1 of competion, an area of Revy that NST is working to make more rideable for resort visitors, 16 men competed in qualifiers and 8 women went head-to-head in quarterfinals. The highest scorers of the day went home with new Ski-Doos (Sage Kotsenburg on the men’s side and Hailey Langland on the women’s side).
4 women and 8 men advanced to the Yeti Natural Selection Selkirk Tangiers on a face northwest of Revelstoke Mountain Resort in the Selkirk Tangiers Heli tenure. Weather conditions dictated that finals day would happen the day immediately after the Revelstoke event, as conditions were great, helped by the avy mitigation of the Selkirk Tangiers crew.
And that takes us to finals day in Mosquito Bowl, a sprawling face with spines up top, benches in the middle, and tree-scattered cliffs near the bottom. Nail-biting rounds led us into the finals (watch the replay here) and Mikey Ciccarelli and Marion Haerty emerged victorious, each claiming their first Natural Selection win.
Natural Selection Selkirk Tangiers women’s podium. (l to r) Mary Rand, second place; Marion Haerty, first; Jamie Anderson, third.
Colin Wiseman/Natural Selection Tour
Said Mikey, “Natural Selection Tour is the coolest event in snowboarding; the terrain and the riders are unmatched. We are riding the terrain for the first time when we do our runs, which makes for such exciting riding for us and the audience.” He added, “My winning run was a bit of a Hail Mary. I just put it all on the line and tried to go as big as I could. This is by far the biggest accomplishment of my career. I have been a huge fan of NST since the first event and had the dream to one day make it onto the tour. So the fact that I was able to win the Tour is truly surreal.”
Haerty, who has been competing in Natural Selection since the first year of the event in Jackson, had to take last season off due to rehabing injury. To return to the Tour and win was something really special. “I wasn’t thinking about competition, I was thinking about what would be beautiful snowboarding,” she said. “This season I was finding the right balance between engaging and respecting my body after two arm operations last year, I didn’t necessarily have a lot of training like other years but rather a letting go of my vision of performance, to have fun above all and find a beautiful serenity on my board. Natural Selection Tour is for me the cherry on the cake.”
Men’s podium. (l to r) Nils Mindnich, second place; Mikey Ciccarelli, first; Travis Rice, third.
p: Colin Wiseman/Natural Selection Tour
Congratulations to Marion, Mikey, and all the riders, as well as the entire Natural Selection crew for a stellar season. We can’t wait for next year. Watch the Natural Selection Selkirk Tangiers replay and follow @naturalselection for more.
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