Tue, 02/08/2011 - 12:47pmFive minutes with Marja Persson

She's won the Verbier Xtreme, ranked 2nd in the 2009 Freeride World Tour, taken more than her share of hits in the line of duty and just took second at the Nissan Freeride Chamonix Mont-Blanc. And she can lift a snowmobile, sort of. Who is Marja Persson?

Photography © C. Margot and D. Daher / Freeride World Tour. All rights reserved.

I can't believe this is true Marja, but were you really snowmobiling before you were skiing? Before you were five years old?

That is correct! I was kind of driving a snowmobile. My father worked with snowmobiles so we had this mini-snowmobile, it's called a Kitty Cat. I had the grip reflex but I couldn't really steer the thing so he tied a rope on one ski and stood in the middle holding the rope so that the snowmobile would automatically turn around him. So I could hardly walk but I was driving a snowmobile!

 

You've been competing in the Freeride World Tour for a number of years but where are you from and where did you start skiing?

I grew up in the countryside about six hours north of Stockholm – in Ostersund. The ski resort Åre is just an hour away to the west.
But I actually started skiing in the small resorts that are totally unknown near my home. It wasn't until we were a little older that my friends and I went to Åre.

 

When you really got into skiing, in Verbier back in 1999, could you ever have imagined that you'd be back eight years later and win the Verbier Xtreme?

No – I watched that event when I was there and just thought what those guys were doing was so insane!

Photo ©  D. Daher / Freeride World Tour. All rights reserved.

 

So is that how you feel when you see the video from your competition run?

When I watch the run back I feel I want to do Bec de Rosses again! I want to do another line there – I know that I can do it even better.

 

Is that your proudest achievement so far?

Definitely, just to compete on that face and win something is amazing. I've competed twice on that face and I would really love to do it again.

 

Is it still really scary for you?

It's a challenge, but a positive one. I love that face; you forget totally about the competition and it's just you and that face. I've only skied the dog leg and I think it's a lot less scary than how it looks from a viewer's point of view. It is really fun to ski.

 

Do you have to deal with fear often, is that something you have to learn to control?

You have to have some amount of fear to be smart about your skiing. If you don't have fear or respect of avalanches there is a risk. You need to look into safe exits in case of of an avalanche. But the fear I'm dealing with is 'injury fear'. The season after an injury can be really hard as you try and figure how much your body can take and if it will hold as good as you thought it would. That fear goes with time but it doesn't really feel positive.

 

Have you had some big injuries?

Last year I had three injuries. I'm just coming back from injury now – the worst one was a slipped disc so I'm still not really sure how much my back can take. My slipped disc was from lifting a snowmobile. We had this four-stroke snowmobile that was stuck and there were three of us lifting it and I just felt my back go but thought it was a muscle. I carried on skiing and picked up a knee injury and then broke my hand – not on the same day thankfully! I've had a broken back in the passed but this time was really hard because I had three different injuries. I was in pain from December until June.
But I have to give a big thumbs up to my physio Magdalena in Sweden who really helps even though I'm travelling all the time. She gives me different programs to do depending on how my back is feeling so it's really down to her that I'm still feeling so good now.

Photo ©  D. Daher / Freeride World Tour. All rights reserved.

 

How's this season going for you?

It's good, I got second at the Nissan Freeride de Chamonix Mont-Blanc and I crashed the first event but it feels like I'm on the right track. I have some shots already for the film Free Radicals I'm working on with Down Film.
I'm really motivated although I've been sick for eight days and have missed some of the comps which is really hard – I'm really sad about that but the doctor was more or less laughing at me when I said I wanted to compete!

 

What is makes skiing so special for you? What is the buzz?

I love being outdoors, even when I'm not skiing, but skiing allows you to have that real adrenaline rush. I love the speed of skiing in good snow when you feel like you can go as fast as you want. Filming is the best combination for me because you are usually in a good group of people that you know well, but you are also riding the best conditions. There is no other stress than your body and the camera.

 

Tell us a little about Summits4Kids?

Summits4Kids (summits4kids.org) is something that we started in 2009. I was talking with Laura Bohleber and we wanted to go to Peru because they have some of the best mountains in the world. She told me about a girl running street projects in northern Peru for kids. There's crazy high unemployment over three and this girl was running projects to try and get the kids off the streets. So we wanted to try and fundraise for them. We thought we could use our media contacts and our sponsors to see if they would sponsor the trip but all the money goes to the kids and we actually pay for the trip ourselves. We got together 11,000 Euros in the end and it seemed really easy considering how little time we had. From that we decided to start a charity organisation to do it again and try and inspire other people to do the same. We launched the website as a platform for that and in November 2010 we did our second trip, this time to Ecuador. We try to create a sports challenge for ourselves but also to fundraise for the charity.

 

Thanks for your time Marja, do you have any shout-outs?

I'd just like to give a big thankyou to my sponsors: the North Face, Nissan, Swatch, Black Crows, Adidas Eyewear, Garmont, Powertraveller, Freegun, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, POC and Marker.

 

Interview organised by Nissan Sports Adventure: stay up to date with the team on Facebook, and watch the action from the Freeride World Tour on YouTube.