Justine Dufour-Lapointe leaves freestyle skiing for Freeride tour

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Double Olympic medallist Justine Dufour-Lapointe, who has been considering her future for several months, has finally decided to leave the rigid structure of freestyle skiing for the more permissive one of “freeride.”

The Montreal native said she made the decision after observing promotional content from the sport on various platforms.

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“There was a moment — I’m not sure when — that I had this idea, telling myself: ‘Hey, Freeride looks really cool’,” she said in an interview with La Presse Canadienne. “I saw content on social media and I really liked the fact that there was freedom of expression, that it was a different sport. Plus, they used the same skills as those I had in moguls.”

So she announced Tuesday morning that she would continue her career on the Freeride World Tour, becoming the first Quebecer — and first Olympian — to join the circuit founded in Switzerland in 1996.

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“After three Olympic cycles and 12 incredible years on the World Cup circuit in moguls, I felt a need for new challenges,” she said in a video posted to her Instagram. “I felt that my career was not finished and I still had a fire that burned in me.”

Dufour-Lapointe won the gold medal in women’s moguls at the Sochi Olympics in 2014, and the silver at Pyeongchang in 2018. Her older sisters Chloé and Maxime have already retired from competitive freestyle skiing.

The principle of “freeride” is simple: There’s no clock, no fabricated jumps or even trails. There’s a start and a finish, and the descents are done in a natural environment where athletes are at the mercy of all the elements, from rocks to trees to crevasses. Athletes are also not allowed to ski on the face of the mountain before competition, and can only analyze the course using binoculars.

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Participants are judged for the quality of their descent and given a score between zero and 100. The jury is composed of four judges who grade based on five judging criteria: the difficulty and choice of line, control, fluidity, jumps and technique.

“I can have freedom in a completely new environment,” Dufour-Lapointe said. “I’m eager to improve myself in a new discipline and connect with the mountain in a new way. I’m jumping into this new challenge to find the adrenalin that I always had for skiing and get out of my comfort zone. I want to make my own path and leave my mark.”

She spent the past few days in the French Alps, but her training in freeride started long before that.

“People didn’t really notice, but I’ve already done training camps in Colorado and in New Zealand this summer,” she said. “It was to see and experiment in freeride, to be certain that when I made my decision, I was 100 per cent sure. And when I tried it the first time, with the danger, the reading of the course and everything … I realized that what I loved was the freedom.”

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The door isn’t completely closed on freestyle skiing, she said, noting the first stop of the World Cup tour in Ruka, Finland, last weekend was the first time in more than a decade that none of the Dufour-Lapointe sisters were at the starting line.

“I think it was impossible for me to not watch that competition,” said the winner of 15 World Cup titles among 49 podium finishes.

She will need to find new sponsors to finance her freeride career, as she will no longer get Canadian government subsidies.

“I’m leaving with partners that have believed in me for several years. But I’m also searching for new sponsors, because it’s a sport that is completely separate, that isn’t financed by the government. I have to pay to travel, for lodging, food, and since I’m starting I need some help, coaching, people to support me. It’s a golden opportunity, and I think it’s a great chance to develop a market in a sport that isn’t well-known in Quebec, but very popular in Europe. It’s even televised in some countries.”

The 28-year-old will begin this new chapter of her career in Kicking Horse, B.C., Jan. 13-18. The FWT season has five stops in total, with the last one in Verbier, Switzerland, March 25 to April 2.

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