For those who don’t know Marcel Hirscher he is one of the most successful professional ski racers ever. He was competing for over 15 years, between 2007 and 2018 he won eight consecutive World Cup titles, he also won 11 medals at the Alpine Skiing World Championships (7 gold) and 3 Olympic Medals (2 gold and 1 silver). It is no wonder that so many consider him the best alpine skier in history. Retiring from racing in 2019 there were questions what he would do next, the answer is he launched a ski brand together with Red Bull Sports – called VAN DEER – Red Bull Sports.
It is considered that Marcel’s obsession for tinkering and fiddling with things and his need for perfectionism often drove people mad. But his ability to translate his intuition and extraordinary feeling for both snow and gear into innovation have made him one of the most successful alpine skiers of all time. No wonder that he wanted to build skis for a bigger market, VAN DEER are building skis for racing, for back country touring and for chasing the powder and all of them are hand built to extremely exacting standards.
Handcrafted at the Augment ski factory in Stuhlfelden, Austria with 90% of the parts coming from local and regional suppliers. The timber core is a bonded combination of wood (Ash, Polar, Beech and Paulownia) each bringing good bending strength, elasticity and load bearing capacity.
VAN DEER skis are build using longer ski press cycles than the most of skis. The better bond between components guarantees longer lifetime and better performance. At the end of the construction process all of the skis are meticulously hand finished and tuned to world cup racing standards!
If all that is not enough you have to admit these are some very good looking skis!
For those who like the stats ….
Pro S 174cm
Pro M 181cm
Pro L 185 cm
SIDECUT (mm)
105.5 – 65 – 90
105.5 – 68 – 92
106 – 68 – 91
RADIUS (M)
21
21
25
WEIGHT (G)
1600
1800
2025
And if you would like to see the man himself in action, here is Marcel Hirscher skiing what is regarded as the hardest and most dangerous ski race in the world, The Streif, World Cup downhill ski course in Austria, located on Hahnenkamm mountain (Kitzbühel Alps).
‘I think in a nutshell, it’s simply the most terrifying, most breathtaking, fastest, most difficult downhill course in the world’.
Marcel Hirscher