“I love nature, and I love my sport”

Encounter with Géraldine Fasnacht, snowboard Freeride and paralpinisme athlete. 3 times X-treme Verbier Champion. 8 victories in world championships.

www.geraldinefasnacht.ch

Photo: Anthony Demierre

Thank you Géraldine for meeting with Help-for-Hope. You are one of the world’s most renown and successful freeride snowboarders, and a role model to many young people. How did you first get into snowboarding?

I was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. We often went to the mountains already when I was a small child. So I started skiing when I was 2 years old.

One day my mother told me she wanted to start snowboarding. I was 10 years old then. She did not want to go all alone. So she asked me if I would go with her. I said “ok”, and off we went. I remember that first day, it was horrible! I remember saying “never again”. But then we went again, and I soon got the hang of it. Since then I never went back to skiing again, I was hooked to snowboarding.

Already then, snowboarding gave me the desire to discover more about nature and mountains in particular.

Short Profile Date of birth : June 18 1980 Place of birth : Lausanne, Switzerland Profession     : Pro athlete since 2002 1st Place Rankings :     2000 Thyon freestyle     2000 Diablerets     2002 Verbier X-treme     2003 Verbier X-treme     2004 Engadinsnow     2006 Engadinsnow     2007 Tamok Arctix Freeride     2008 USA stop World freeride Tour     2009 Tignes World freeride Tour       2009 Verbier X-treme Goal in life:“Find the positive side in everything and keep smiling”

And then, what happened?

We were going to Verbier every week-end and on vacations. I used to snowboard every free moment. I often was with friends, and often also went out alone onto the slopes. It was a great time.

Once I was at the snowpark and the boys were doing a competition. There were very few girls at that time snowboarding. Some of the boys, my friends, challenged me to get onto the slope and make the freestyle comp. Of course I had to take on the challenge. And I was lucky, I won the competition…

How did you first get in touch with the pro-world?

That was a funny story. I was snowboarding on Mt. Fort glacier, in Verbier Switzerland. While getting onto a skilift, a young gentleman happened to be next to me taking the same anchor. We started to talk, and he asked me a lot about my snowboarding, and about some of the local races I had won. He asked if I would be interested in being sponsored. It was unbelievable for me then, can you imagine, a free board? When I told my friends, they didn’t believe a word. It was too good to be true!

The person invited me to the offices of the company. I took a dossier with me, with some newspaper clips about my competition etc. He then told me that he had one other girl ready to be sponsored, and that he had to choose. He told me that the other girl sent him a picture wearing a bathing suit. I told him that I’d never do that, if that was the choice he should go with the other girl. He smiled and tossed the other girl’s photo into the garbage bin. He wanted to test me. Or I guess I just was lucky, I only realized later how tricky these situations can turn.

Talking about turning pro, did you turn pro immediately after school?

No, I worked for Swiss at Geneva Airport. First as apprentice ship. I wanted to become a load controller, you know the people responsible to dispatch the planes, the ones you see coming onto the plane when everyone has boarded, to give the final ok. It is a role of responsibility, you are in charge of all the documents and lots of safety details, making sure that everything is set before the plane takes off.

The person in charge of selecting load controllers almost laughed at me. I was still very young and with little experience. And there were very few female load controllers. I insisted, and asked to take the test to be admitted for purser training. I studied like crazy, and the big day came. I passed! So they had to take me onto the training.

Right when everything seemed set, I got a call from the organizers of Verbier X-treme. They wanted to offer me a wild card to their competition. I couldn’t believe it. It was like a dream come true. Verbier X-treme, a competition that is invitation only, where the biggest stars from all over the world would compete. To me it was magic. And a real dilemma: purser with a secure future, or letting everything go and betting all on the competition…

My mother was very supportive during that time, and always encouraged me to follow my dreams. So I decided to quit Swiss and started to train for the competition. A lot of people did not understand my decision. It took a long, long while for my father to talk to me again.

Defining moments… and how did you experience the big day?

Oh, it was magic. Unbelievable. Everyone was there, all the big names, everyone who is known in the freeride circuit. And there I was with them, walking up the mountain, and then on top of the mountain preparing for the ride. I was the youngest of all, everyone was so nice. I had nothing to loose, so I just wanted to have a great time and went for the pleasure of it.

Once we were all down in the arrival area, they called out the three men finalists and the two women finalists. You know, there were only 5 places on the helicopter, the only way to have 2 runs in a day was to take the finalists back up by helicopter. And there it came, they called out my name…

So we flew back up, and the five of us were in great spirits. For me it was just a dream, to share this moment with athletes I had on posters in my room, as role models. We wished each other good luck, and for some reason I was totally relaxed. It was already much better than I could have hoped for. So down I went, and had a great run. It was my first victory at Verbier X-treme.

An incredible story, congratulations! The first victory in an outstanding palmares. How did you manage to stay “with your feet on the ground”? Where do you take the strength of character from?

From my parents, friends, people I meet and from the experiences I go through in life.

And life has had its difficult moments [NdR: Géraldine’s husband Sébastian Gay tragically passed away in a mountain accident on December 30, 2006]. I think it is the mountains who gave me the strength and courage to carry on, to continue doing what I’m doing and to live my dream.

I did never ever think of becoming a professional athlete in my sport ever. But turning professional has allowed me to live my dream. It’s a big gift from life.

How do you train?

I like to make different things to train. Running, hiking in the mountains and spending as much time as I can in the mountain to learn more about it, to try and “feel it” as much as I can.

Mental preparedness is often mentioned as a competitive advantage - how do you manage tough moments in races?

I don't really train mental toughness, but I do train my concentration. For this freeriding and basejumping are the best sports to learn concentration.

What are your goals going forward?

Always stay positive and find a way to make people happy around me.

You are also involved with bringing children closer to sports, can you tell us more about it?

I think its not normal that mountain sports are so expensive. We are a country of mountains, and in Switzerland every child should have the chance to discover a passion in the mountain, with the same ease as is discovering football.

For this reasons, I always had the dream to organise a sport week-end. In June 2009 together with a group of people from Lilly, a corporate sponsor, we did organize the first mountain camp for children – the Raid Choucas. Some 60+ children, ages 12-15, came to a camp in the mountains of Valais, to explore all sorts of different mountain activities, such as treasure hunts, camping in the wild, Abseiling and Tyroliennes, quizzes, etc. All this in small groups, every group accompanied by a professional mountain guide. It was a great event, which we plan on repeating in June 2010 for some 80 children.

I’d love to have children discover the magic of the mountains, and to give to every child the courage to pursue his and her dreams.