For Alexis Pinturault, it’s a blank page and a new chapter ahead of the new Alpine skiing season

You can be the winner of the big globe at the World Cup, a skier with 34 victories, a serious candidate for best in the world, a monster both physically and mentally, and yet have a disaster of a season. This is what happened to Alexis Pinturault in the 2021-22 season. No victory, three podiums and a failed Olympics convinced him that his approach was not the right one after he reached the holy grail 18 months ago. Pinturault took stock, understood what he had to change and now hopes to slowly become who he was once again.

Since numbers are often the best way to get a point across, here are a few. Not since 2012 and his first success in the World Cup has he finished the season without a win. Not since the 2010-11 season has he collected so few podiums (always at least four and often eight). Lastly, his 10th place in the standings for the overall World Cup is by far his worst record - he has otherwise always been in the top six since 2013. In short, not a lot of room for optimism based on what we saw last season.

How does he explain it?

“I didn’t take enough time for myself, to rest, I was extremely tired,” he says to Eurosport.

“I was a bit casual last season. All that automatically doesn’t work in top-level sport.”

Pinturault tried to push through issues with himself, the weather, the sensations when on skis, without ever finding his feet despite two podiums in two weeks at the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022. And even getting himself geed up for the Olympics ended up being in vain. A failure yes, but a season that was far from being devoid of lessons.

This difficult season undoubtedly marks a turning point in his career. If we had to be convinced the release of his book “De l’or au cristal” is a good argument. The book deal had already been offered to him but he initially thought to wait until the end of his professional career. “I’m still active, I still ski, but I felt it was necessary to close a chapter,” he tells Eurosport of the change of heart. Time to move forward.

How? By taking time, he says. Pinturault only resumed his training when he felt like it. His schedule has adapted to him, not the other way around. “It was important for me to take time for reflection. Do I still want this? Do I enjoy it?” he reveals. Yes, the word retirement crossed the mind of the most successful French skier in World Cup history.

So don’t talk to him about the overall and the big globe. This goal now makes no sense to him. “It’s not my priority. Today I don’t have any achievements, I didn’t win last season, I only made three podiums. I’m starting from scratch.” At 31 the new approach is exciting. “I have to rediscover the pleasure, the desire, I have to put that in place in the competitions. It will perhaps take a little time. I want to ski as quickly as possible and to get victories… Except that I don’t know if at the start of the season I’m going to be capable of that.”

So don’t expect Pinturault to take the roof off in the season-opener in the giant slalom at Solden. In high-level sport the result always takes precedence over the rest. At least from the outside. From a distance, no one really understood what was going on in Pinturault’s head last season. Even if he confided in his discomfort, identifying the feelings that will inhabit him in Austria, it will still be complicated. If he regains pleasure and confidence, things will move in the right direction. And in his case, it will be anything but trivial.