Hey Markus my name is Joseph D’Agostino and I am a student at Riverside secondary school in Port Coquitlam, British Colombia Canada. It would be a great pleasure if you could help me out with a school project emphasizing community connections. The main focus of this project is to reach out to someone that does something that I am passionate about and do a little interview with them. This interview doesn’t need to be in person and can actually take place on multiple apps when you have the time since I only need to ask you a couple a couple questions I live to ski, especially Freeride and I inspire to one day be as good as you  I would appreciate if you could reach out to me as soon as possible. Thank you for your time

Questions

Markus Eder is a professional Freeride skier and travels the world to ski on the worlds greatest mountains. It took him a while to respond to my Instagram messages but he didn’t let me down. I actually got the chance to speak to him through the phone and through text messaging. Ive been following Markus for a while, he’s been in multiple different competitions across the world and has been making movies with different ski companies. Watching him perform is really something special to me and I feel like I learn something new every time I watch him. He is really a big inspiration to me and I was thrilled that I got the chance to finally talk to him.

Why are you passionate about your job?

Markus said that he doesn’t even feel like what he does is a job. He explained that ever since he was a kid he always wanted to have a job that he would never get tired of. He said that he wanted something that wasn’t repetitive and something that didn’t have long hours so he had time to ski. Fortunately for him it went even better than he expected. Markus is very humbled that he can do something that he enjoys every day. For him he said that he’s excited to wake up every morning and get straight to work. He loves to try new things and with Freeride skiing, Markus said that there are no boundaries and you are basically your own boss and you skies and poles are your new coworkers.

What obstacles have you faced to get you where you are today?

In the beginning, Markus said that the first real struggle was trying to get noticed because he said that you can’t just fill out a paper and hand it to Salomon or Armada. For this type of career he said you really had to stand out. he said that for people to start realizing who you are and that you actually existed. Markus said that he sent hundreds and hundreds of emails to different skiers, ski brands and ski companies to take a look at his videos or even come ski with him. In the end, he ended up going to a couple competitions until he finally got noticed and the calls starting coming in. Markus says that they’re a couple other obstacles that he faced like travelling and most of them being related to money but he says the biggest one was standing out.

What advice would you pass on to someone interested in what you are doing?

Markus says that the one thing he regrets not doing sooner when he was just starting off is reaching out sooner and not waiting for people to come to you. He says that he taught everyone would just come to him and so he waited and waited ans waited. He said he waited until he realized no one would come. Markus says that don’t wait for the opportunity to go by. He also explained that if you have a dream which doesn’t seem realistic or maybe far out of reach never give up. In his words he says, and I quote”Give it your all nothing is far out of reach if you put in the work and you love what your doing. No compromises”

Would you be open to further contact from Riverside students ands if so, how can someone contact you?

Markus said that this was definitely not the first time a young teen has reached out to him and he is happy that wether it be students, young skiers or young fans, he said that he is happy that he has a young fanbase and reminds of him when he was a kid and looked up to his ski idols. Markus said that in the future he would not mind other students from Riverside reaching out to him and is open to all kinds of questions. He also stated that the best way to reach out to him would to either comment on one of his Instagram post or dm him but he did say that it is harder to answer back if you were to dm him cause he gets a lot of difficulty dms and doesn’t check them often. For his privacy does not like to share his email which is totally understandable.

In your opinion how has Freeride skiing changed over the past century?

According to Markus he feels that back then it was less common to have people ski for a living and actually make a reasonable amount of money. He said that there was always instructors to teach but there wasn’t really a fanbase of people who wanted to see skiers and snowboarders go down a mountain the way you would watch a game of hockey or football. It was mostly because it wasn’t heard of. He also stated that there was always the Winter Olympics but even there they never had Freeride. Markus was lucky enough to look up to one of the first generation people to start a the Freeride movement which is what started his dreams and for that he said, is very thankful. He says now there is almost this feeling that every year you need to step up your game in the Freeride world and he says that’s why more and more skiers and snowboarders are transitioning to Freeride.

What are the most important qualitie to have for this job?

Markus said that especially for this type of job and passion you really need to have “greet’. What he means by this is that you have to have the mindset of that gif you fail once it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. He said that you need to learn that failure is a good thing wether it be from attempting a sick jump or a specific part of the hill, he basically stated that to be great at something you first need to fail. He said that’s probably the most common mistake he sees when people are trying to go pro is that they can’t take the fact of loosing. He says that once you master that mindset you can really start to develop your full potential.

I was thrilled that I was able to talk to Markus and kind of connect and talk about our passion for skiing. Unfortunately, he couldn’t put in a good word with me with any of his sponsors but I definitely felt like I learned more about how he thinks and skis.

 

 

 

This is actually some of his winning runs from last years Freeride World Tour.

 

All photos and videos taken from https://www.freerideworldtour.com/rider/markus-eder/photos#