Freeride skiingMarie Bovard

INSPIRE

Marie Bovard

rising star of Freeride skiing

Crowned double world junior champion in 2018 and 2019 on the Freeride Junior Tour (FJT), the young skier is now part of this young world elite of gifted riders, ready to compete on the mythical Freeride World Tour (FWT).

Published on 14 February 2023

Follow the Inspire series

Marie Bovard

Born on August 29th 2001. Marie Bovard is a young freerider who lives and skis in the Portes du Soleil. She started skiing at the age of two, living in the largest ski area in the Alps, Les Portes du Soleil.

We talk about

Freeride skiing

Freeride skiing is the practice of skiing downhill off-piste, on powder snow slopes. Derived from alpine skiing, it is practiced in leisure or competition skiing. Freeride skiing is the contemporary name for off-piste skiing, which has evolved into an extreme discipline with committed route choices or jumps over rocky bars, for example.

Episode 4

Marie Bovard

Inspire by Les Portes du Soleil

Living in Morgins, a must-visit Swiss resort-village in the Portes du Soleil area, let’s just say that Marie has always been around skiing and the mountains since she was very young. She could hardly walk when she was already putting on skis. Today, she still has unshakeable memories of her first years on the slopes, when she was skiing down the Géant slope, the beginners’ area of her resort. Fearless, it didn’t take long for the budding skier to start venturing to the top of the slopes. From the top of the Foilleuse, from where she could easily admire the exceptional panorama of the Dents du Midi and glimpse the immensity of the ski area, how could she not one day dream of skiing in total freedom?

The INSPIRED

Marie Bovard

the portrait

Like many young people in the Valais, Marie started out in the world of alpine skiing, before deciding to devote herself entirely to freeride skiing. Introduced to the sensations of off-piste skiing by her passionate father, she naturally became very quickly addicted to powder and wide open spaces. By communicating with nature and the mountains that surround her, freeride skiing gives her an unequalled pleasure of sliding, mixing freedom and creativity, and it is often this creativity that makes the difference in a competition. In freeride indeed, it is not only the technique that is judged, to this is also added a set of other criteria that define the quality of the runs: the difficulty and choice of the line, control, fluidity, amplitude of jumps and diversity of tricks.

“For the young woman, although she excels in competition, not everything is associated with the notion of performance in her approach to freeride skiing.

For her, it’s primarily a way to live in the moment and recharge, to take advantage of the right conditions to recharge the batteries in contact with nature. While she trains most of the time in the heart of the Portes du Soleil, she also sometimes likes to enjoy her favorite playground during a quiet ski touring outing.

In the vastness of the Massif du Chablais, she always finds a corner to escape from the outskirts of the resorts and enjoy totally wild spaces, still untouched by any tracks.”

Emblematic

WHAT IS IT?

The FREERIDE WORLD TOUR

Who hasn’t heard of the Verbier Xtreme?

The last stage of the Freeride World Tour (FWT), it has become the legendary event that separates the best of the tour on the iconic Bec des Rosses descent.

Unlike a classic ski race, freeride ski competition is characterized by the absence of timing, checkpoints and of course a groomed, groomed run. Even if the face on which the skiers evolve is secured by trackers and rescue workers in case of accident, the freeriders evolve freely on the terrain, according to their own choice of trajectory. Here, daring is largely rewarded, while the energy and style of the skier is often more important than speed. Thus, 360s, backflips, rock bar jumps and other aerial tricks are often performed by riders to increase their chance of scoring.