With fellow big mountain skier Kristoffer Turndell hot on his heels for the overall crowning of the the Freeride World Tour title, Markus Eder was going into the final of the tour in Verbier not knowing if he was going to get his hands on the title or not.
However, with Kristoffer only managing to place second amongst the formidable Verbier stage that cuts its way down the legendary face of the Bec des Rosses, Markus was dropping into his final Freeride World Tour line of the season knowing that he would get to the bottom and be crowned the 2019 winner.
“Now I shit my pants skiing big jumps in the park”
Raised in Luttach, on the mountainous border between Italy and Austria, Markus has essentially been living on a pair of skis since the age of four. From a young age, he began progressing his skiing down the traditional pathway of downhill ski racing.
However, this path didn’t last too long. At the age of 14, Markus soon got caught up amongst the more free and progressive discipline of slopestyle. This is where teenage-Markus could show his flair and creativity amongst the terrain parks around the world.
It was during the 2010 Nine Knights though where Markus really exploded onto the scene, at the age of just 19, storming into the competition as a rookie and taking the title after landing a Doublecork 1260.
A week before his crowning run in Verbier. We met Markus whilst out with The North Face in the Alpes d’Huez, where he found time for us between competitions in what must have been a pretty full-on few days. We chatted about Markus’s merging of a solid freestyle background with the freeride scene, and even managed to ride a few top to bottom laps of Alpes d’Huez with the new champion. Not a bad day at the office, to be honest.
