Exclusive Interview: Freeskier Reine Barkered

, March 26, 2011

Magnetic Junction’s Seb Fish caught up with Reine Barkered at the Freeride World Tour in Verbier over the weekend. Here’s the exclusive interview.

Can you describe your line?
Yeah it felt good I tried to ski fast, I saw that the snow was kind of difficult for a lot of people but I thought that I could show everybody that you could ski it!

You picked a fantastic line, but what went wrong at the end?
I went a little bit too big but I thought I had the landing but you know my ski just dived down and there was nothing I could do. I had that split second and I felt: “YES,” and then I saw my right ski go under the snow.

Why did you pick that particular line?
Yeah it’s a line I’ve done before and I always enjoy that line because you can ski it really fast. I was thinking about doing the same line as Aurélien [eventual winner of Verbier Xtreme and FWT 2011], but after Ludo [Lovey] crashed through the whole thing and everything, I wasn’t thinking about doing it. And the thing is it’s not my style of riding; I don’t like the exposure and you have to go slow. I want to do obvious lines where you can ski with speed, like movie lines!

reine_barkered_freeskier_fwt_line_2011
Reine’s line at FWT 2011

Are you disappointed on missing out on the world title this year?
Of course I am but I knew I had to go for it and I mean it was one of those crashes… It’s gonna happen 30% of the time and it happens. I didn’t really ‘screw up’, it wasn’t that kind of a crash. It was one of those: “Come on! Come on! Come on! Oh no.”

So can we expect to see you competing here next year?
Yep. Yeah I’m gonna be here next year.

Did you enjoy the tour this year?
Yeah, absolutely. I wouldn’t have miss it for the world.

What’s the best thing about the Freeride World Tour?
All the people, for sure!

What’s the atmosphere like when you’re up there on the mountain?
On the hike and on the contest day it’s a little bit more… not chilled, but people are nervous you know and stick to themselves. I like to talk when I’m nervous, so they get pretty annoyed with me…!

How do you prepare yourself before you drop in?
I just made sure that I had my line right in my mind and I know from experience that once you leave the start gate, it’s all about skiing, and you figure stuff out as you go.

How bad were the conditions?
It looked much better than it was. It was nice in the respect that it was soft, so it was pretty easy to drop, it was softer than ice! But it was also very heavy snow, very difficult to turn, very difficult to slow down and difficult to stomp as well I guess… It felt nice but it was very difficult.

Do you have any plans for the rest of the season?
Erm, not really, I have some ideas and I will see if they will become a reality or not. Otherwise I will just go home and chill with my friends skiing slush in Sweden!

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