“I have absolutely no room for error. The most successful French snowboarder in history, Pierre Vaultier repeats this over and over again at the start of his fascinating documentary Reshapes, which quickly exceeded 6 million views, since it was posted on the web on March 4. And for good reason, the double Olympic snowboardcross champion (Sochi in 2014 and Pyeongchang in 2018) set off a month earlier on 300 m of slope and 14 snow modules with a knee prosthesis.
The culmination of a crazy adventure, two years after bursting onto the screen in January 2019 with shapesa Red Bull project for which the 34-year-old athlete created his pump track (a spectacular course made up of modules, bumps and banked turns) tailor-made, with fantastic success with the general public: more than 35 million views! The rest of 2019, on the other hand, is loaded with hardships for Pierre Vaultier, between the death of his mother and a forced end to the season due to a concussion protocol after a fall on the head during training before the Park City World Championships (USA).
“My end of career had slipped through my fingers”
Then there was this bicycle accident in June 2019, “the beginning of the ordeal”. Victim of inflammatory arthritis, with suspicion of infection, his right knee requires no less than four operations in two months. “It was getting worse and worse, the knee couldn’t bend at all with this cartilage degeneration,” he sighs. On the program eight months without walking and finally, a year and a half after this fall, the forced installation of a prosthesis. In December 2020, he took the opportunity to formalize, “resigned”, his retirement as a high-level snowboarder and remembered a Christmas, “my prosthesis and I at the hospital”. Except that in 2021, Pierre Vaultier is relaunching against all odds with his snowboard.
“It normally takes five months to properly recover the functionality of your knee after the installation of a prosthesis, he explains. I had a good feeling so I went back to riding on June 1, 2021 on the glacier of Les 2 Alpes (Isère). Like what the brain is stronger than anything: I was so stubborn that I took over directly with a running board. “The speech of a doctor will at the same time turn his destiny upside down: “He told me that it was not because no one had resumed high-level sport with a knee prosthesis that it was impossible. . This phrase resonated with me. The end of my career had slipped through my fingers and it made me want to dive into a crazy and absolute project”.
“I was living a waking dream”
To know how to maintain the documentary Reshapes with Red Bull while aiming to take part in the 2022 Beijing Olympics. An “incredible turning point” which is reminiscent of the unexpected return of freestyle skier Kevin Rolland. “Like him, I then forbade myself to doubt,” says Pierre Vaultier, who is gradually regaining his physical qualities as a double Olympic champion, to the point of rejoining the French team last fall.
“I was living a waking dream,” he smiles. I stayed two years away from the circuit and I had lost none of my qualities. It freaked everyone out, so much that opponents joked that I had been pretending to be hurt the whole time. This feeling of being back in the game was great. I had every intention of getting my leg back in top shape, as if there were no prosthesis. »
“The slightest dislocation on a prosthesis would be dramatic”
Except that in terms of French law, the presence of a prosthesis in his knee turns out to be an endless headache. “With the federation, we said to ourselves that we were going to find a solution concerning insurance, but we came up against the law, slips the native snowboarder from Briançon. The medical committee has always followed the contraindication to the practice of my high-level sport on which the prosthesis manufacturer insisted. “If Andy Murray, for example, was able to return to the ATP circuit despite a hip prosthesis, Pierre Vaultier therefore had to resolve to drop the case in November, just before the first stage of the World Cup.
“But the next day, I switched to the desire to create the project from A to Z. Reshapes “, smiles the interested party. After two weeks of intense construction, with 1,500 m3 of snow, on this new pump track designed by Pierre Vaultier himself via “ultra-precise 3D modeling”, the big day is scheduled for February 3. “I was under tremendous pressure, between the fifteen people mobilized by Red Bull and the short weather window, with 45 minutes to complete the entire run. “And inevitably doubts as to the resistance of this knee in the event of a poor reception.
Every time I took the route, I said to myself: “Do I really have to do this?”. The slightest dislocation on a prosthesis would be dramatic. Am I not in danger of getting rusty and never walking again in my life? It’s one of the first times in my life where I was really scared on my snowboard. »
“At one point, I had to put a veil on these risks”
Pierre Vaultier ends up setting off on this incredible challenge at 5 m high, on “a creepy starting tower”, with a 15 m cliff below, and 50 cm wide to pass in certain places, all close 70 km/h on average. A jump of 17 m between two modules and a speed almost three times higher compared to shapesthe double Olympic champion must show extreme precision to go after a milking.
After “a big heat” in a basin, with a landing off module following a 13m jump, he achieved this major challenge of his career. Obviously, his surgeon was not in the front row with popcorn to salute the feat. “He was only awarea posteriori and he did not approve, recognizes Pierre Vaultier. But he respects what drives me deep inside. Before the start, I had an update on the negative consequences that a fall would have. Then at some point, I had to put a veil on these risks. »
A “level of fear and requirement” that he had never reached
And thus rush towards a 2022 season that looks like a “completely full glass” despite the forced renunciation of a fifth Olympic participation. “I validated my return to competition by titillating my opponents for the restart. Then I completed a monster video project, reaching such a level of fear and demand for the first time. »
What deserve to “finally breathe a little”, before a new arthroscopy in May to clean the fibrosis of his knee. “I know how on edge I am with this prosthesis,” concludes the high-alpine athlete. Appointment for Reshapes still in a few months, Pierrot, right?