Park City’s Olympic gold medalist Sage Kotsenburg Competes Today in Natural Selection

Sage Kotsenburg takes a run on the Natural Selection test event course in Jackson Hole, WY, USA Jan 27. Photo: T. Bird / Red Bull Content Pool

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. —  The Red Bull Natural Selection Tour is in its final day of the Jackson Hole leg of the competition today. Natural Selection is a unique snowboarding event that combines elements of nature, competition, and backcountry freeriding. Parkite and Olympic gold medalist Sage Kotsenburg competed today in the quarterfinals, losing to Ben Ferguson. The host and creator of the event, Travis Rice, was eliminated by Canadian Mark McMorris.

There are three stops on the Natural Selection Tour this year and the competition is being live-streamed on Red Bull TV. The first stop was hosted by Jackson Hole Mountain Resort which closed off a section of the mountain for the competition. The next two stops of the tour are Baldface Lodge in British Columbia and Tordrillo Mountain Lodge in Alaska.

“The Natural Selection Tour is designed with Mother Nature as the main character, and with mutual respect for and from snowboarding,” said Rice. “Women’s snowboarding is progressing so fast and we are thrilled to have both men and women riding in the tour. I’m beyond excited to witness what is possible in snowboarding when riders of this caliber are able to build off of each other’s progress in real time on some of the absolute best riding venues.”

A recap of the first day of the competition includes Park City snowboarder, Bode Merrill: