Here Are Your 2026 Natural Selection Tour Champions
Nearly four days had passed since the day one of the Natural Selection Tour was underway. A big storm and 15" of fresh snowfall later, and Nils Mindnich and Zoi Sadowski-Synnott still rose to the top.
Mindnich and Sadowski-Synnott both won the NST’s Revelstoke stop on March 14, 2026. It was the first NST championship for Mindnich, who podiumed in 2024. Sadowski-Synnott won her second NST title in four contests. The trophy will look nice on her mantle next to her Olympic Big Air bronze and Slopestyle Gold that she won in Italy just weeks ago.
Colin Wiseman / Natural Selection Tour
“There’s very few events in the world that are harder to put on than something like this,” Travis Rice said in a press release. “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.”
Here are your final results:
Women
- Zoi Sadowski-Synnott
- Šárka Pančochová
- Billy Pelchat
- Madison Blackley
Men
- Nils Mindnich
- Brin Alexander
- Torstein Horgmo
- Blake Moller
Sadowski-Synnott took down 35-year-old Czech rider Šárka Pančochová in the final. Pančochová started her final run off with a beautiful 720 and ended it with a 180. Sadowski-Synnott led as she dropped in for her final run and pieced together a run that featured a backside 540 and a huge backflip. The judges rewarded her with a 73.6 and her second NST title.
Takaya Sage / Natural Selection Tour
“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,” Sadowski-Synnott said after the event. “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.”
Billy Pelchat, who found her way into the contest after winning Robin Van Gyn’s Research and Development contest, finished in third place.
Colin Wiseman / Natural Selection Tour
Mindnich’s finals run started with a sleepy switch backside 540 and ended with a stylish-as-hell method. Alexander threw down a huge double backflip, but the Vermonter was able to hold Brin off for a score of 82. After Alexander fell in his second run, Mindnich’s final run was all but a victory lap.
“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 said after the contest. “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.”
You can watch the full replay of the event here.