Geneva, March 13, 2020 – Alpina is delighted to announce Italian skier Markus Eder, winner of the 2019 Freeride World Tour, as a new Alpina Watches ambassador, the latest member of the “Alpinists” team.
“We are very proud to welcome Markus Eder into our Alpinists family. Markus impresses with the mark he his making on skiing, with his style and capacity to bring freestyle into the backcountry. I am really looking forward to us learning from each other and growing together”, Alpina Brand Manager Oliver van Lanschot Hubrecht, highlighted.
“I’m honored to have become an ambassador of the Alpina family, together with amazing athletes from all different sports. We’re all sharing the same drive to constantly get better at what we’re doing and bring our game to the next level, just like Alpina does”, said Markus Eder.
Considered a role model in the universe of freeride, Markus Eder is a 28-year-old skier from South Tyrol, Italy.
Born on November 30, 1990, in Brunico, Markus Eder grew up skiing in Klausberg, an Italian small resort near the Austrian border. Having made his debut as a ski racer, he was bound to be attracted by the creativity and fun freestyle skiing had to offer and began to focus on this discipline in 2005.
His flair combined with his artistic and competitive personality allowed him to rapidly break out onto the European stage, and further become a renowned international freestyler after winning the Nine Knights contest in Sölden, Austria, in 2010.
As a park skier, Markus Eder won the Nine Knights in 2010, the SFR Freestyle Tour in 2011 and competed in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia (15th in qualifications).
In 2011, Markus Eder took part in a backcountry competition for the first time at the Red Bull Linecatcher contest and won the second place. Having discovered the joys of freeriding and exploring mountains, this experience opened new perspectives in Eder’s skiing career.
From this moment on, Markus was driven by the ambition to excel both in freestyle and freeride disciplines and becoming the first skier to compete at the Freeride World Tour and at the biggest freestyle events.
His vision to stand out among his freeride competitors was based on the reinterpretation of steep lines using his freestyle background as an advantage. Markus won the World Heli Challenge in 2012 and took second overall in 2018 Freeride World Tour before being crowned Freeride World Tour Champion in 2019, the most prestigious title a big-mountain rider could earn.
Markus Eder starring in five Matchstick Productions (MSP Films) films from 2014 to 2018 became another turning point in his career. Two of these movies, Days of My Youth and Drop Everything, were filmed in Alaska – Drop Everything was also partially shot in Canada -, giving him the opportunity to demonstrate his technical prowess on the Far North steep lines.
Besides working on projects with third parties, Markus has always loved to ideate, produce and distribute his own personal projects like Night at the Opera, Alptopia and My playground, in which he can drive his message in a personal and artistic way.
In 2020, Markus decided to step back from competitive skiing to focus on a personal project. However, he competed in the Fieberbrunn 2020 Freeride World Tour stop as a Wildcard, in Austria, on Sunday March 8. A destination dear to his heart, Markus Eder won the Fieberbrunn stop in 2019, realising his best performance.
ABOUT FREERIDE WORLD TOUR
Since 2016, Alpina has been the official Timekeeper of the Freeride World Tour, an annually toured series of events in which the best freeskiers and snowboard freeriders in the world compete for individual event wins, as well as the overall title of Freeride World Champion in their respective genders and disciplines.
The events take place on what’s commonly referred to as “backcountry”, “big mountain” or “extreme” terrain – essentially ungroomed powder snow on dangerously steep, mountainous slopes – across the world’s most renowned ski resorts and legendary alpine faces.
FWT Management SA, based in Lutry/Lausanne-Switzerland, is organizing world-class sports events in mountain resorts and regions since 1996. Founder of “Verbier Xtreme”, iconic event in freeride skiing & snowboarding, FWT Management SA, has taken in 2008 this stand alone event to create several Series of international freeride competitions totaling over 150 events around the globe for professional, amateur and junior riders.
FWT Management SA is the exclusive owner and organizer of the following Series : Freeride World Tour (FWT), Freeride World Qualifier (FWQ), Freeride Junior Tour (FJT), Freeride Junior World Championship (FJWC) and a Freeride Skiing Team Competition (Skiers Cup) with events taking place in Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Oceania.
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