AURELIEN DUCROZ - WORLD FREERIDE CHAMPION

Can you imagine waking before everyone else to get to the highest, most dangerous mountain peaks? Even if it is bitingly cold outside, you want to go where almost no-one dares. You climb and you climb, getting higher all the time. And while you are doing this, you are carrying your precious skis over your shoulder. What you are looking for is that virgin snow, freshly fallen. But it is more than that. You are looking for the snow that is hanging almost vertically off the mountain side. Because what you are going to do is ski down the most radical slope you can find, and often the only way down is through the air.

Now take the idea even further. You are still looking for those radical slopes, those inaccessible ways down, but now are going to stunts and tricks while you are hurtling down, twisting and turning in mid-air. And you are going to do this against other adrenaline junkies in a completion being watched all over the world.

If you can imagine doing this then your name is Aurélien Ducroz and you are the World Free Ride Champion of 2009.

Aurélien came to Alpina as he recognised kindred spirits and we are delighted to be his official watch sponsor. But Aurélien is not someone to sit still when it is not Winter. He has always been active, seeking out the biggest thrills and the greatest challenges. At a young age, Aurélien was already a world class snowboarder but swapped this for the thrills of the Free Ride Tour and before long had become World Champion, an unheard of exploit given the difference in disciplines.

More recently Aurélien has given himself a new challenge – to cross the Atlantic in a single person sailing boat...way to go Aurélien!

If anyone, then, is going to put their Alpina Manufacture Regulator to the test, then it is going to beour ambassador Aurélien Ducroz. His watch would have known all the conditions that nature is able to bestow by the end of this year. From extreme cold to gales at sea, soaked by large Atlantic waves or rocketed down a rock strewn slope. And it is still firmly and proudly being worn on his wrist.

From this winter you will be able to catch Aurélien on Eurosport as a team of journalists follows him on his adventures.

 
http://video.eurosport.fr/sports-d-hiver/freeride-spirit/2009/freeride-spiritepisode-2_vid133265/video.shtml