Iouri Podladtchikov has many facets. We met up with the Swiss all-rounder in his local resort of Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he’s been preparing for the season, to talk to him about his ACL rupture, but also about his new book: “True Love is hard to find.”
The preparations are looking good. The story about the cruciate ligament which cost me a lot of time, is over now. Now there’s no time for mistakes. To make a long story short: everything’s going smoothly, but we have no time left.
Saas-Fee has been on the table for a long time as the spot to train with the Swiss Team. But nobody knew how the set-up would look exactly. Last year, the discussion came up with the shapers of the park to see if they could prepare the pipe specifically for the season preparations. The crew of shapers organized something that never existed before in Saas-Fee, so that’s why all the snowboarders and freeskiers are here.
For me personally, Saas-Fee is one step of the season preparation. You can study your own tricks and define them. I generally check what’s working and also try new stuff. My very first test was in Les 2 Alps, only 3 months after my ACL recovery, to see if everything was working properly. Back then it was still very dangerous and all that mattered was to feel the snow again and to cruise a little. Now in Saas-Fee it’s all about the basics: to get some kilometers on the board in order to feel comfortable. In addition to that, I changed some details of my board regarding the shape, the stiffness of the board and some intricacies. These are all little details for which there’s no time left afterwards. You just try to get your contest-run under control as perfectly as you can at the beginning of the season. And for that you’ll need some runs in the pipe.
Yes, I was very stoked by the public reaction. For the first run, there are just 2.000 books. As I don’t want to overdo it the first time around.
The book sold well. I liked the fact that the people understood immediately that it’s not an auto-biography of myself, so it’s not the common scenario ‘sportsman writes a book.’ The publisher [Simonett&Baer] usually work with architecture and arts books. For me, it was a great experience to create the book with the publisher and they guided the tone and overall collaboration with myself.
I have the feeling that my run for this season is getting better with each day on the board. I can’t allow myself any more mistakes. But I can handle it. Everything is possible!
I have definitely missed a lot of time in the pipe, as there were some already training since the spring, so I have to compensate for that anyways. If my formulas work, everything will work out just fine. But you can never tell for sure, but rather give it your all and then see.
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