Dylan Florit & Jeremy Baud win The North Face Backstyler by Swatch 2013

The North Face®, the world’s premier supplier of authentic, innovative and technically advanced outdoor apparel, equipment and footwear are pleased to announce that Dylan Florit (FRA) and Jeremy Baud (FRA), led by team captain Xavier De Le Rue, are the first rookies to win The North Face® Backstyler™ by Swatch®.

The contest gave the opportunity for six young guns from the Freeride Juniors By Dakine, handpicked by legendary freeride captains, Sam Smoothy (NZL), Markus Eder (ITA) and Xavier De Le Rue (FRA), to win monetary support towards their future freeriding projects. Embracing the new trend of incorporating freestyle in freeride, each Backstyler™ team had to create a video and image gallery showcasing three different formats in the following styles: Markus Eder – 30% Freeride/70% Freestyle; Sam Smoothy – 50% Freeride/50% Freestyle; Xavier De Le Rue – 70% Freeride/30% Freestyle.

The teams were given a week of shooting time in Verbier and a further week for editing by their media partner before going live online with their content. After 10 days of battling via social media to gain votes for their video on www.backstyler.com, Xavier’s team saw off the competition with an impressive 396 vote lead. Fans could vote once a day for the duration of the competition, bringing a total of 10,452 votes, 31,100 video plays and over 50,000 page views.

 “I am really happy for Jeremy and Dylan. It’s been really great to see that really bright flame in their eyes, and really refreshing to spend a couple of days with those awesome riders. I can’t wait to see in a very few years’ time where they will take the sport of big mountain riding!” exclaimed The North Face® and Swatch® Proteam athlete Xavier De Le Rue.

Xavier’s team included photographer Tero Repo, filmer Guido Perrini and was supported by skipass.com.

To see the teams’ videos and find out more go to www.backstyler.com.