When Patricia Druwen dropped into the iconic Joyride slopestyle course on the final day of the Crankworx Whistler festival in July 2023, she had a feeling she was inching toward the inevitable—that one day she would compete in front of the world on this same stage at the Whistler Mountain Bike Park. This would be significant, as the globally renowned contest is a competitive high mark that has only been open to men during its 20-year existence.

But she had no idea that day would come so soon. After all, 2023 was the first time that women had been invited by Crankworx to formally session the course. Actual competition still felt a long way off.

“I knew it would come, but not in 2024,” said Druwen, a 17-year-old phenom from Germany who is quickly earning a reputation as the world’s best female slopestyle rider. “I thought in 2025 or 2026, so it was a big surprise.”

Indeed, at the end of 2023, Crankworx and the Freeride Mountain Bike Association (FMBA) announced the addition of a women’s division for the Slopestyle World Championship (SWC), the elite contest series representing the pinnacle of slopestyle mountain biking. The series consists of competition on four “Diamond Level” courses, one for each of the four Crankworx stops: Rotorua, New Zealand; Cairns, Australia; Innsbruck, Austria; and the crowning event in Whistler, Canada.