Mathilde
Gremaud
Switzerland
·
Freeskiing
Date of birth | 8 February 2000 |
|---|---|
Place of birth | Fribourg |
Age | 26 |
Nationality | Switzerland |
Career start | 2014 |
Disciplines | Freeskiing Big Air / Freeskiing Slopestyle |
Of course, learning to ski at the age of two gives you a certain advantage, but to reach a first World Cup podium at just 16, Mathilde Gremaud needed more than just the early start.
A passion for skiing runs in the family: her father was an ambitious racer and Mathilde also spent some of her younger years fighting for fractions of seconds between the alpine skiing flags. At some point though, she developed an interest in freestyle and started to pick up Slopestyle and Big Air tricks in record time. She was also able to transfer over the power and coordination she gained from her summer pursuit of athletics.
Winning from the beginning
Two years after her first regional contest, Mathilde made her international debut. While still a school student in Engelberg, she took part in her second World Cup season, finishing on the podium four times and taking third overall in Big Air with 225 points.
2017 also saw her legendary leap to Big Air victory at the X Games in Norway, where the jury awarded her Switch Dub 10 a perfect 50 out of 50 possible points. One year later she took part in her first Winter Games, bagging a Slopestyle silver in Pyeongchang just days after suffering a concussion during a training crash.
On September 14, 2020, Mathilde took female freeskiing to a new level when she landed the first-ever Switch Double Cork 1440, a real watershed moment. Then, just a few months later, in January 2021, she took the trick to the contest slopes and landed it in competition for the very first time in the Ski Big Air finals at the X Games Aspen, earning her the gold medal in the process.
She's showing no signs of slowing down either, continuing to add more silverware to her collection with every passing competition – including a bronze medal in 2022 from the Freeski Big Air event in Beijing, China, and most recently, gold in Slopestyle at the FIS Freestyle Skiing World Championship in Bakuriani, Georgia. The following year, Mathilde won five FIS Freeski World Cup events.
In 2024, Mathilde became the first woman to win three FIS crystal globes in one season. She won the first six stops in the Freeski Big Air World Cup 2024-25 season. She now has more than 20 World Cup podium finishes.
Gold at her third Games
Mathilde hit Milano-Cortina, her third Winter Games, with one thing on her mind: gold. After silver and bronze medals in Pyeongchang and Beijing, she was just missing the hardest medal of all to complete her collection and Mathilde didn't disappoint.
In a fiercely contested final, Mathilde's incredible second run score of 86.96 points saw her just beat Eileen Gu's opening run 86.58 to take the win and the gold medal, completing the Olympic medal sweep and sending the huge Swiss contingent in the crowd into raptures.
Mathilde Gremaud on the flat bar
© Lorenz Richard
Getting in the zone at the Laax Open
© Lorenz Richard/Red Bull Content Pool
Stomping her run at the Laax Open
© Lorenz Richard/Red Bull Content Pool
At the Winter X Games in Aspen
© Christian Pondella/Red Bull Content Pool