The five-time world champion in mogul skiing Perrine Laffont explained Thursday that she was banking on a “different” winter this season, far from competitions, to spend more time training and regain “freshness” before the big ones. international meetings.
The 25-year-old Frenchwoman announced Wednesday in a press release “to take a break from competition for a few months” to best prepare for the 2025 World Championships and the 2026 Olympic Games.
“Next winter, there are no world championships, there are no Olympic games,” she told journalists during an online press conference on Thursday. She wants to take the opportunity to “train and spend more time on skis, something that we have very little time to do” when we go through the World Cup stages.
Also read: Depression, desire to stop everything… Camille Lacourt and Perrine Laffont tell the behind-the-scenes story of life as a high-level athlete
The Ariège skier therefore opted for a “lighter season” in order to leave with “even more of the knife between her teeth”. “It wasn’t an easy decision to make because I remain a competitor” but “it’s quite exciting, it’s a winter that I’m going to experience differently.”
After a big 2023 season which she ended with a fifth big crystal globe and two new world titles, Perrine Laffont admitted in March to being “on the knees”.
This season’s break will allow her to “regain mental freshness” with a view to 2025 and 2026, she explained. “I’ve been playing in the general classification for seven years (…), I’ve been experiencing very mentally intense seasons for seven years,” she also underlined.
“It never crossed my mind to stop,” she said, however, from a weight room in Albertville, where she is completing a big block of training before putting her skis back on at the beginning of December.
The Pyrenees, the most successful mogul skier in history with five world titles, recounted in the documentary “Strong, as strong as fragile” broadcast last month on Amazon her depression after several years of high-level success, notably after his Olympic title in 2018, at just 19 years old.
“It was a difficult time,” she said Thursday. “The goal of this season is not to get tired again and to anticipate all that. I want to perform well and I know that I need freshness for that.”
