He once went through the same talent promotion as Marco Odermatt – and even made it to the top in two sports. Maxime Chabloz, freerider and kitesurfer, lives a life between mountains and sea, completely self-determined.
Maxime Chabloz throws himself into the north face of the Bec des Rosses and finally does a backflip.
What comes after compulsory schooling? An apprenticeship or middle school, usually. Maxime Chabloz, on the other hand, went to Brazil for three months as a 15-year-old, determined to make kitesurfing his career, and to do it right away. He was already junior world champion, had his first sponsors and was able to afford the adventure thanks to crowdfunding.
The parents finally agreed that they wanted to give Maxime two years to finance a professional life in this marginal sport. He succeeded “without any problems”, as he says.
Chabloz, now 21, is now sitting in the lounge of a hotel in Silvaplana and telling his story. Since March 26th he has been world champion in the big classes. But not in kitesurfing, but in freeriding, as a skier, in the debut season on the World Tour. The rookie won three of the five competitions, including the final Verbier Xtreme, the sport’s legend on the fearsome north face of the Bec des Rosses.
«I clench my teeth for the competition»
Before the Xtreme, Chabloz announced he was afraid it wasn’t a wall he would just ride for himself. As soon as he walks on the ridge to the starting area, he feels queasy. “But I clench my teeth for the competition,” says Chabloz, “and as soon as you start driving, the stress and anxiety are gone.”
Before the run, he had found a safe spot and played around on his cell phone to distract himself. Then he threw himself into the wall and finally did a backflip while jumping over a rock – victory of the day and world title.
The run in Verbier that brought Maxime Chabloz the day’s win and the world title.
The newcomer duped the competition even in Verbier. Chabloz says he benefited from the fact that the conditions didn’t allow him to start from the top and he was therefore able to choose the same line as when he was the forerunner the year before. Otherwise he has never been to the Bec des Rosses. “It’s not something I want to do in my free time,” says Chabloz, “I need a good reason, otherwise I’d rather ski fat powder than jump over huge cliffs.”
As steeply as Maxime Chabloz zooms down the Bec des Rosses, he has risen to the top of the world in this extreme sport. Maxime competed in ski races when he was young, like his brother Yannick, who was two years his senior. He completed his first World Cup downhill runs last season, came thirteenth in Val Gardena – and suffered hand injuries in a fall on the Olympic combined downhill run. Two days after this accident, while Yannick was still in the hospital in China, Maxime won the contest in the Canadian ski resort of Kicking Horse.
Whether downhill skiers like Yannick or freeriders like Maxime – the dangers in both sports are immense. “There are places where a small mistake can be life-threatening,” says Maxime Chabloz, “that’s not really my thing. In my mind, so many things can happen when you’re skiing, there’s a rock under the snow, there’s a risk of an avalanche. If the conditions are bad, you better let it be.”
Not that the nerves of the loved ones are even more strained. Yannick and Maxime Chabloz’s parents come from Vaud, but Yannick was hardly born when the family moved to Lake Lucerne to change jobs. The Chabloz live in Beckenried, it’s a good kilometer from the front door to the valley station of the Klewenalp ski area, “and we can walk to the boat dock in two minutes,” says Maxime.
Maxime Chabloz, freerider and kitesurfer.
Yannick and he joined the local ski club when they were boys, and they attended high school in Hergiswil. There they benefited from the promotion of talented skiers, which today is considered an almost legendary source of young talent, because the overall World Cup winner Marco Odermatt and a surprising number of other World Cup racers emerged from it. Maxime Chabloz went to school with Alina Odermatt, Marco’s sister. He learned to water ski and wakeboard with the Chabloz and now also lives in Beckenried.
The next logical step up the ladder was actually the sports school in Engelberg. But Maxime Chabloz didn’t want to do anything more with school and racing after high school. “I liked winning, but I never found true love for alpine skiing.” Unlike his brother, he found it difficult to motivate himself for all the training, “I was never very ambitious, I had a chat when I could do a backflip somewhere. Red goal, blue goal – that was never my thing.” He wanted to become a professional kitesurfer instead.
He heard he was born in the wrong country
The Chabloz are a sports and skiing family, the parents are trained ski instructors, and the mother still teaches today. Kitesurfing was a hobby they first indulged in during holidays and long weekends in the south of France. When Yannick was already at the sports school, his father often went to Lake Uri with Maxime, “for a boy it was a perfect spot”. But not for a professional. Maxime heard from his father that he was born in the wrong country to make it to the top in kitesurfing.
Then to Brazil, when I was 15. “I caught up with what my competitors had ahead of me in terms of hours. They all come from kite destinations where you do it from an early age like we ski from an early age.”
The stay abroad paid off. Maxime Chabloz qualified for the world tour and was signed by a major equipment manufacturer. Freestyle is his discipline, where you let yourself be carried into the air by waves, wind and stunt kites (kite) in order to show the most difficult tricks possible. Maxime was junior world champion in 2016, 2017 and 2019, and at the end of 2020 he won for the first time on the world tour on the Brazilian island of Guajiru. His big goal is the world title, i.e. overall victory, but the contest series has to get going again after the pandemic.
A Swiss from Nidwalden world champion in kite surfing – it sounds a bit crazy, but this landlocked country has also provided the winning team in the America’s Cup of sailors. The fact that Chabloz became world champion in freeriding seems much more logical. “I realized a bit late that I had potential in freeriding and that it’s quite a big sport.”
Thanks to his years as an alpine skier, he had a strong foundation in skiing technique, he had developed the acrobatic, the feeling for jumping and rotating in kite surfing and free skiing. So why not take part in freeride competitions? Maxime Chabloz became Junior World Champion in 2019.
At the beginning of this double life everything worked out well in terms of timing, the kitesurfing season lasted from April to November, and the freeriding season from January to March. This time it was different: After winning the freeride contest in Canada, Chabloz flew to Colombia for a kitesurfing competition before continuing in the snow in Fieberbrunn and Verbier.
From Colombia to Verbier: Maxime Chabloz is a freelancer with two mainstays
Maxime Chabloz embraces the particular challenge of playing two very different sports at the highest level. And the combination is also financially attractive. Chabloz is a freelancer with two mainstays, each with their own kit deals or prize money. And for the sponsors who generally support him, he can offer more exposure than if he were limited to one or the other.
The partnership with Silvaplana, the meeting place for the conversation, also stands for this. The place in the Engadin is not only at the foot of the Corvatsch ski area, but is also considered a Swiss kitesurfing hotspot. Maxime, who like his brother still lives with his parents, also spends a lot of time abroad, especially kitesurfing in Greece, Egypt or Brazil, always looking for the nice weather and the good conditions, whether on the water or on the mountain.
He uses apps and the internet to check where the wind is blowing and how much fresh snow is expected. “I try to take advantage of the fact that I’m not employed anywhere and can more or less do whatever I want. I used to be so frustrated when there was wind or powder and I was at school.”
From student to kitesurfing young pro to freeride world champion. And now?
For Maxime Chabloz, the freerider, things can hardly get any better. “I thought about whether I should just stop now. The Stress and Risk We Must Take. . .» There were thoughts of focusing more on kitesurfing again, because that might increase the chances of winning this world title as well. But Chabloz says: “Since I’ve been competing in freeride, I’ve gotten better at kitesurfing. I think I’m so good at one because I’m also good at the other – and vice versa.”
Maxime Chabloz still has dreams and goals as a skier. Like a perfect run, 100 points. Or a double backflip in a competition.