The Stoke chair was spinning and the runs were filled in with over 40 centimetres of snow Saturday, March 14 for the Natural Selection Tour (NST) finale in Revelstoke Mountain Resort’s Montana Bowl. Over 1,000 spectators hiked, skied and snowboarded down to the Natural Selection Tour venue to watch the action live. Others watched from the big screens in the resort village and through Red Bull TV.
New Zealand’s Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and USA’s Nils Mindnich took the top of the podiums for the women’s and men’s brackets, Sadowski-Synnott with her second ever NST win and Mindnich with his first.
“This contest is so different from any other contests that I do,” Sadowski-Synnott told the media, explaining that her recent trip to Milano Cortina for the 2026 Winter Olympics involved a more structured competition, terrain and snowboarding style. “Natural Selection is more creative and free flowing. It gives riders a chance to show their strength in terrain that’s different and unpredictable.”
The refill of snow was the wild card leading up to the second competition day, with enough forecasted to cover up previous runs and also fill in sections that needed a bit more.
“It’s always fun to explore the whole thing, because this course is massive. I think the new snow will help that,” Whistler’s Billy Pelchat told Revelstoke Mountaineer prior to the second competition day. Pelchat earned a third-place spot on the NST podiums following finals.
The 18-year-old rookie to NST is no stranger to Revelstoke and was quick to highlight low-elevation snow cover didn’t take away from the quality higher up.
“All of B.C. has been having a hard time, but Revy was not bad,” she said.
Japan’s Yuka Fujimori might not have made it to finals day, but that didn’t stop her from making plans for her next trip out to Revelstoke.
“When I come here again, I will check the town more,” she told Revelstoke Mountaineer, listing off Revelstoke’s restaurant scene and the mountain’s steep cliff drops as two big draws to tackle.
Šárka Pančochová, second place in the women’s bracket is also making plans for future NST events in Revelstoke and maybe her own trip out. She’d originally planned to try out the mountain earlier in the season, but conditions kept her elsewhere. But the quick NST visit didn’t stop her from taking in the city and finding some favourite spots.
“It’s been sweet to just kind of hang out and walk to town and be downtown. Everything’s so accessible,” Pančochová said, also highlighting Revelstoke’s food scene.
Her second trip to NST Revelstoke, Pančochová was a little more familiar with the mountain going into the competition. Still, she’s happy to advocate for a day or two more of riders exploring the entire resort and city at future NST Revelstoke events.
You can rewatch the Natural Selection Revelstoke 2026 competition on Red Bull TV.
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