Time to herself helped Swiss slopestyle star Gremaud become World Champion a second time
Jun 18, 2025·Freeski Park & Pipe
Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud knows the importance of having fun on her skis after coming back from an injury-plagued 2024/25 World Cup campaign to end the season with a second slopestyle World Championships title.
Gremaud made it look easy when she took slopestyle gold on home soil at the Engadin 2025 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships back in March, with her first run score of 85.65 putting her more than 12 points clear of silver medallist Lara Wolf’s (AUT) score of 73.33.
“When I came down after my first final run, I was like ‘that was super fun’. I really enjoyed it,” Gremaud said on 21 March after her gold medal win.
“I really felt like I did the run that I wanted, without pressure and with a lightness that I really appreciated.”
In contrast to her winning run, the lead-up to Engadin 2025 was anything but relaxing for Gremaud.
After a 2023/24 season in which Gremaud became the first female freeskier to claim three Crystal Globes in a single campaign after topping the big air, slopestyle and overall Freeski Park & Pipe standings, the 2024/25 season was a far bumpier ride with injuries and high expectations weighing the Swiss star down in the lead-up to her home World Championships.
“My preparations for the World Championships were chaotic even though it still went really well for slopestyle.”
High expectations
Speculation about whether she would be able to deliver the type of performance that gave her three Globes in 2023/24 added extra stress for Gremaud, who came to Engadin as the defending women’s slopestyle World Champion from 2023.
“Winning the Globes created some pressure, but I also told myself that it was another challenge that I could handle and that I needed to be careful,” she said.
“For a little while (my injury) didn’t get better. Right up until the week before the World Championships it was a little sketchy.”
Gremaud said she knew she had to focus on her health and not let the pressure of competition distract her.
“It wasn’t like I was going to be able to ski (with an injury), but my head needed to be solid otherwise it was for sure not going to happen.”
Ultimately, time away from skiing helped Gremaud get into the right headspace for the World Championships.
“After the injury there were five weeks of intense doubts, but it actually gave me a lot of time to mentally prepare. I received a lot of support from my family and close friends," she said.
By the time Gremaud dropped into the Corvatsch course for the women’s final on 21 March, she had already won the most important battle.
“I won it in my head,” she said.
Performing under pressure
Fellow Swiss skier Fabian Boesch – himself a two-time World Champion in slopestyle and big air in 2015 and 2019 respectively – said Gremaud’s ability to perform when the pressure is high is what makes her one of the sport’s greats.
“That’s for sure one of her strengths. She prepares everything so that it’s ready, and that gives her a really, really high percentage chance to get it down and to land," he said.
“Sometimes she also waits (to do her big tricks) until competition, because she’s really confident in the tricks she wants to do and she can do those tricks really quickly and really precisely.
“I’m more the opposite. I try to do my runs in training before the competition – one, two or three times even to get me that extra confidence. But she can do it another way. There’s people who can do that.”
Looking ahead to the upcoming 2025/26 season and the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games – where Gremaud will be the woman to beat as the Beijing 2022 slopestyle champion – the 25-year-old wants to take a holistic approach to training.
The 2025/26 FIS Freeski World Cup season will begin with slopestyle in Stubai (AUT) on 21 November. The freeski qualification period for Milano Cortina 2026 runs from 1 July 2024 until 18 January 2026.
