Stale Sandbech and Peetu Piiroinen didn’t just appear on the elite contest circuit fully-formed; they battled it out in junior comps from a young age, forging the skills and consistency needed to be the best. One of those was the World Rookie Tour, on which both riders scored early wins. British groms have had their share of the spoils too – last year Fin Bremner and Katie Ormerod walked away with gongs from the tour.

Last week, over 100 supergroms descended onto the Austrian resort of Ischgl to battle it out in the World Rookie Tour Finals, to determine who’d be overall champion this year. Fin was once again among them, although his runs came unstuck leaving him out of the medals. The same was true of fellow Brit Raymond Prentice. Matt McCormick fared better, finishing in a respectable 21st place.

In the end it was Norwegian shredder Mons Røisland that walked away with the top male honours, with Henna Ikola from Finland taking the female prize. Other than male bronze medalist Dario Burch (who is Swiss), all the podium spots across men’s and women’s competition went to Norway and Finland. Stale and Peetu may have left the WRT behind long ago, but it seems there’s just as much Northern Europe domination now as there was back then…