It may feel like the winter sports season is coming to a close, but the 2025 Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships have just gotten underway in Engadin, Switzerland. 

Serving as a dress rehearsal of sorts before the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy, skiers and snowboarders from across the U.S. travelled to the high Alpine valley in the eastern part of the Swiss Alps for the World Championship competition from Tuesday, March 18 through March 30. 

Among the group of American athletes at the nearly two-week competition are several Summit County riders who are all vying for a World Championship medal. 

Silverthorne’s Red Gerard and Frisco’s Lily Dhawornvej were some of the first snowboard athletes to put on the pink World Championship bib in Switzerland, competing in the men’s and women’s slopestyle qualifiers on Thursday, March 20.

Coming off a silver medal at the world cup slopestyle competition in Calgary and a gold medal at the 2025 X Games, Gerard attempted to secure one of the eight final-qualifying spots in heat 2 of the men’s qualifiers. 

With 31 athletes featured in heat 2, Gerard had his work cut out for him, but the 24-year-old rider rose to the occasion once again. Gerard earned a score of 58.00 on his first run, which he bumped to a 70.75 on his final run of qualifiers.

The score was enough for the 2018 men’s slopestyle Olympic gold medalist to earn the seventh qualifying spot in heat 2 and advance to Friday’s final. Joining Gerard in the final was Wolcott’s Oliver Martin (fourth in heat 1) and Mammoth Lakes, California’s Dusty Henricksen (fifth in heat 1).

China’s Yiming Su secured the top qualifying spot in heat 1 (94.75) and New Zealand’s Tiarn Collins had the best score in heat 2 (90.0).

In the final on Friday, Gerard put together a decent first run, but failed to execute on all seven sections of the diverse slopestyle course. Earning a score of 45.29, Gerard knew he needed a clean final run if he wanted to jump up from ninth place. 

Gerard laced a switch backside 1620 with a Weddle grab, a backside 1440 and a frontside 1080 to bump his score to a 74.61. The improvement was enough to move up in the rankings, but fell a few places short of a medal spot.

Gerard took fifth overall, nearly matching his finish in the event at the 2022 Winter Olympics. 

Martin won a bronze medal in his first World Championships with a score of 78.98. Canada’s Liam Brearley earned the gold medal with a score of 90.15 and China’s Yiming Su took second (85.07). Henricksen took seventh overall with a score of 63.58.

In the women’s snowboard slopestyle qualifiers on Thursday, Lily Dhawornvej attempted to keep her monumental season going by qualifying for her first World Championship final. With four World Cup final appearances in her first season on the U.S. snowboard rookie team, Dhawornvej put together a decent run on her first trip through the slopestyle course.

Dhawornvej, 15, recorded a score of 55.80 which she ideally needed to improve upon in order to seal a spot in Friday’s final. Dhawornvej attempted to clean up her run on second pass through the course, but was not able to add points to her score.

Dhawornvej finished 15th overall, missing out on qualifying to the World Championship final by three spots and a little under three points. Dhawornvej finished as the top American in qualifiers with Truckee, California’s Hahna Norman being the next closest U.S. rider in 18th place (51.72).

New Zealand’s Zoi Sadowski-Synnott led the 12 final-qualifying athletes, scoring 88.54. 

In the final on Friday, Sadowski-Synnott reigned supreme. The 24-year-old rider performed a switch backside 900, a frontside 1080, a backside 1260 and a cab underflip in order to earn a score of 90.15 and win her third World Championship slopestyle gold medal. 

Japan’s Kokomo Murase took the silver (87.02) and Japan’s Reira Iwabuchi took third (83.55).

Local riders will continue to be featured at the 2025 World Championships. Most notably, Summit County-based rider Lucas Foster and Leadville’s Jason Wolle will both compete in the men’s snowboard halfpipe qualifiers scheduled for Thursday, March 27.

Prior to Foster and Wolle competing, Gerard and Dhawornvej will compete in qualifiers of the snowboard big air competition on Tuesday, March 25 and Wednesday, March 26.