Mia Jones, a rookie on the Freeride World Tour this year, started things off the right way in the first event of the season in Baqueira Beret, Spain, taking out the comp to begin her campaign with the ratings lead. The 20-year-old is the daughter of legendary big-mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones. Mia, who calls Palisades her home mountain, riding out of Truckee, California, made short work of the steep, rocky face at the Baqueira Pro.
Jones has seemingly always been on track to compete. She’s good-natured if you meet her, but rides with an aggressive, smooth style that belies her upbringing under one of the most celebrated snowboarders of all time.
In her winning run, she navigated the wind-blown face with aplomb, making smooth turns and mostly avoiding the dreaded hop-turn-scrape, which can hamper snowboarders in steep terrain and break the fluidity of the line. Other than one slide-out on her heel, she pretty much stomped the first official run of her Freeride career.
“My run went really well and the snow was way better than expected,” she said. “It’s my first time in Baqueira and Spain, and the resort is incredible with so much freeride terrain. Riding in front of such a big crowd was really special. At the top, I didn’t realize how many people were going to be out there, and the support at the bottom was amazing.”
There are five remaining events on this year’s tour, including France (next), Georgia (the country), Austria, Alaska, and Switzerland. The field is cut in half after the Austria event. You can peep the full schedule here.
Freeride is not an Olympic event in 2026 but the chances are good that it might be in 2030. The Freeride World Tour merged with the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) in 2022, and in 2024 FIS made freeride an official discipline in its catalog of sports.
