Olympic gold in off-piste skiing
I went to Sestriere and Turin in Italy together with photographer Fredrik Schenholm. The region will host the Winter Olympics in about a month which was hard to belive seeing how much they have left to prepare before the competitions start.
Sestriere is one big building site and I think they will have a tough last month completing all the spectator platforms, Olympic villages and so on. In about a month you will find 2 500 athletes from all over the world competing in sports like downhill and freestyle skiing. Sestriere is the midpoint of the competitions in alpine skiing; here you will find names like Bode Miller, Herman Maier, Janica Kostelic and Anja Pärson fighting about one hundredth parts of a second to reach the top of the podium.
We skied the Olympic slalom as well as the Olympic downhill but we went to Sestriere with something totally different in our minds. Our goal was to search beyond the slopes and make enough powder turns to earn an Olympic gold in off-piste skiing.
We were first met by poor snow conditions and very low visibility and ended up spending the first day skiing the Olympic downhill and drinking grappa; the local Italian liquor. Second day though; was a bluebird! We found our way to the other end of the ski system Vialattea; skiing above the villages Claviere and Montgenèvre, and we were highly rewarded as we found untouched fields of powder and superb skiing. We played around in some gullies on Rocher de l’Aigle and launched some cliffs in Monti della Luna; the moon mountains.
In retroperspective maybee not enough for an Olympic gold but still good fun!