Snowboarding
Xavier De Le Rue’s countdown to Verbier Xtreme
Part 2: As contest day approaches, Xavier scopes out the rocky competition face to select his line.
5 min
Xavier De Le Rue’s Mental Combat – Part Two
Xavier De Le Rue’s Mental Combat – Part Two
Every time I see the Bec des Rosses, near or far, I ask myself, ‘Oh God, do we really go down there?’
- Xavier de Le Rue
With just days to go before the contest begins, things are looking extremely scary on the Bec des Rosses, the notoriously treacherous mountain that is the home of the most dangerous contest in snowboarding – the Swatch Xtreme Verbier.
Watch the second part of Xavier’s countdown to the Verbier Xtreme in the player above!
Looking down...
© Freeride World Tour Xtreme Verbier/Dom Daher
Using a camera mounted on a drone, Xavier is able to get a birds-eye view of the mountain he’ll soon be riding down, and what he sees is far from reassuring: the entire face has been ‘scraped’ by wind, removing the powder snow, and leaving it highly exposed to the countless rocks that litter the face.
Dangerous? Definitely. But it’s a challenge that Xavier is prepared to meet. After all, the conditions are the same for everyone: and ultimately that means it’s a fair contest that will be won by the rider who is best able to combine safety and control, with speed and aggression.
It’s a contest that Xavier has won four times (2007, 2009, 2010, 2011): there is no doubt he has everything it takes to win it again. Or does he? After crashing out at every event since 2011, Xavier knows that before he can beat the other riders… he has a mental battle to win with himself.
In this second, most gripping of instalments, Xavier paints a picture of a contest that only a handful of riders in the world are mentally and physically equipped to compete in, and survive.
Watch the first part and the last part of Xavier’s countdown to the Verbier Xtreme here:
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