I thought that Digger's films (NSX1, NSX2 etc.) were the start of people's awareness of the North Shore riding and thus freeriding. He did start earlier than the Kranked films, built many of the trails, and has become a household name on the Shore. If you watch his films, esp. the earlier ones NSX1 and NSX2 the whole hucking thing isn't as big a feature as riding the logs etc. More of the trails were a blending of terrain with adjustments (nail a hollowed out log piece to a log that runs in the direction of the trail to allow people to get onto the log - instead of todays full rung system). The North Shore didn't become famous because of it's rocky ledges and near cliff decents (too many trees in the way!). We aren't famous because of sick steep decents down rocky chutes. Sure we have some (e.g. as pointed out Kamloops - but it's the NS that is coined), but so does everywhere else and downhillers having been practicing on that type of stuff for years before "freeriding".
But anyways I'm not using a single race as my "yard stick" to measure who is the best freerider(s). It is, though, an indication that when all Canadian entries do poorly that either the Canadians had really bad luck as a group or perhaps something else needs to be examined (like maybe the Aussies have caught up? Time to work on whatever was weakest and blow them away next time?). Sure anyone can have bad luck but we still say that the person who wins the gold in the olympics or world champs is the best in the world (for that time period). I think it's fair to say though that Lance Armstrong is the best road cyclist in the world without question, having won multiple times in the Tour. And I'd still say that Wade is without a doubt the best freerider even though he didn't (couldn't) enter the Ride. He's shown his stuff in it before, as well as Rampage twice and does freeriding feats first and smoothest.
As for the definition of freeriding - "exploring new lines and manipulating your terrain" I like that. This is probably the best definition for freeriding (as it has become) - but I stand by the belief that the original NS freeride scene is more like the Ride than the Rampage. Cedric even implied that other DH should try out the Rampage race (same skills plus some big balls I think he was refering to as DH).
