PR Partner Press Release
Posted by SGB Media | May 3, 2021
Astral announced that its sponsored athletes, Nouria Newman and Aniol Serrasolses each took home top honors at the 2021 Whitewater Awards. Serrasolses won Male Rider of the Year, while Newman was named Female Rider of the Year.
Photo courtesy Eric Boomer, Red Bull
Newman, shown above, claimed her fifth consecutive Rider of the Year title, capping a year featuring four first descents, including the Pakidaile and Pucuno Falls in Ecuador (now called Don Wilo’s Falls), becoming the first woman to drop a 100-footer.
Serrasolses, shown below, spent countless hours on the river while locked down in Chile, and even built a cabin home on the Futaleufú. He continued to push the boundaries of downriver freestyle, including a snow kayaking project and the first double kickflip off a waterfall.
SHELLEY â It seemed an incongruous scene: Two men stepped out of a pickup parked next to a huge, flat Shelley farm field dressed in ski jackets, pants and ski boots. They pulled packs and downhill skis from the vehicle and walked out into the field.
They were a long way from the nearest ski resort.
But with the help of large kites and a stiff Idaho wind, the pair were soon zipping back and forth across the snow-covered field at speeds usually seen at downhill resorts.
âThat field over there looks better, but this is the field we have permission on,â said longtime snow kiter Gerald Staker of Idaho Falls. He and friend Aaron John were literally flying at times across the field.