The North Face announced skiers Tom Wallisch, Nick Martini and Mike Riddle, and snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington have joined its athlete sponsors team. The North Face has a team of more than 60 professional global athletes which includes snowboarders, skiers, rock climbers, mountaineers and ultrarunners.
Wallisch, Riddle, Martini and Farrington will work closely with the company’s Research, Design and Development teams to create and further develop technical product for park and pipe.
“We are thrilled to bring such strong, talented athletes onto The North Face athlete team,” said Aaron Carpenter, Vice President of Marketing for The North Face. “We look forward to supporting each of them as their careers grow. Being able to bring our big mountain heritage to the competition scene will inspire young athletes to push their boundaries and discover their upmost potential.”
Skier Tom Wallisch took first place at the inaugural 2010 European X Games and first place in Slopestyle at the Dew Tour Snowbasin. Wallisch was ranked as the top slopestyle skier in the world by the Association of Freesking Professionals in 2009. That same year he also took first place at the Simon Dumont Cup, in Slopestyle at the Dew Tour Lake Tahoe, as well as second place at the European Open and Jon Olsson Super Sessions. Wallisch can also be seen on FUEL-TV and starred in MTV2’s Dew Tour Reality Show in 2009.
Skier Mike Riddle is a member of the Canadian National Halfpipe Team. He took first place in the Superpipe at the Dew Tour Breckenridge in 2009 and competed in the 2010 X Games in Superpipe and High Air, taking fourth in both. Riddle is very involved in pushing for the Ski Superpipe to gain inclusion in the 2014 Olympic Games.
While an injury kept him off the mountain during the 2009-2010 season, skier Nick Martini can be seen in Poorboyz’s Revolver (2010) and Stept Productions’ Network (2010) as well as 2009’s Can’t Stop by Ride The Planets. In 2009 he was named the Dew Tour Ball Park Alpha Dawgs Award Winner, awarded to top Dew Tour athletes age 18 or younger. He took first place in the Slopestyle at the Waterville Valley J5 Jam, and second place at the Loon Mountain March Mayhem, Slopestyle.
The newest snowboarder to join The North Face, Kaitlyn Farrington is no stranger to the podium. She won the 2010 Winter Dew Tour Overall Championship and first place in the Halfpipe. Farrington also took first place in the inaugural European X Games in early 2010, as well as a second place finish in the Halfpipe at the Burton US Open Snowboarding Championships. She was recently named to the 2010-2011 US Snowboard Pro Team.
“It's very exciting to be working with such a cool company and having the ability to produce the products we want and need is just awesome,”said Wallisch. “I'm really excited to have The North Face involved in our aspect of the sport. They always strive to produce the best gear for any sport and circumstance.”
For the past decade The North Face has supported and aligned film projects by companies such as Teton Gravity Research, Matchstick, Alterna, Bluebird, Standard and Absinthe.
