Olympic Gold Medallist Vaultier Makes New Dream Line Film ‘Reshapes’
Two-time Olympic gold medallist Pierre Vaultier has returned to the slopes with new 25-minute documentary Reshapes as the French snowboarder takes on a “dream line”.
After his many Olympic and World Cup titles Vaultier went viral in 2019 with his ‘Shapes’ video which saw him undertake an incredible 110 runs to make his way down a course of imposing six-metre high snow blocks in Serre Chevalier.
Vaultier’s “ultimate snowboarding pump track” earned millions of global views and he has now returned with an even more impressive snow structure built in Serre Chevalier at 2400m altitude.
Reshapes took 14 days of work to move up to 1500m3 of snow and sculpt this new line with a scalpel with eight shapers, 300m of slope and 14 snow modules created for Vaultier to tackle.
The 34-year-old from Briançon learned snowboarding at Serre Chevalier in the Alps and he went on to claim snowboard cross gold at Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018 as well as the 2017 world title.
He also won six World Cup titles in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2016, 2017 and 2018 on the back of 22 race wins before retiring due to complications from inflammatory arthritis of the knee in December 2020.
In a 25-minute documentary accompanying the clip – in which we see him take part in this hypnotic 30-second course – Vaultier looks back on this comeback after injury and talks about the conception of the route, and the realisation of this technical, human and sporting performance.
“It was a huge technical and sporting challenge, we had no certainty that it would work, not to mention that the weather played tricks on us throughout the shoot. The jumps had to be ultra precise, meticulous; the landings were really perilous in certain modules built on the side of a cliff. I had absolutely no right to make mistakes, there was no room to deviate or even to brake. From the moment I stepped into the line, I had to go all the way. Reshapes is not just this new line, it’s above all the story of the long road I travelled to get back to the highest level,” Vaultier says.
