Personal best

PERSONAL BEST

KEEPING HER POWDER DRY

Alexandra Belovich swapped skis for snowboard five years ago. She’s been gripped by the thrill of the sport ever since.

Words Jo Caird Photography Joe McGorty

With snowboarding you’re on the edge. It brings something out of me and makes me catch my breath

Alexandra Belovich’s favourite spot to snowboard is on the quiet but challenging Chaux Ronde in Villars.

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lexandra Belovich’s snowboard is a thing of beauty. Designed for both powder snow and racing, it’s curved at both ends. And it’s black, with a pattern underneath that is gradually revealed as the board picks up scratches during its owner’s adventures on the slopes around Aiglon and at home in Kazakhstan. “It’s amazing,” she says. “I named it Lorenzo, after my coach.”

Alexandra (Le Cerf, Year 12) began skiing at the age of four but never felt quite at home in the sport. Then, five years ago, she tried snowboarding for the first time while on holiday with her family in Val Thorens. “I liked it from the moment I started,” she says. “I find snowboarding much more thrilling. On skis you can balance and it’s not scary. With snowboarding you’re always on the edge. It brings something out of me and makes me catch my breath.”

This will be her third year snowboarding at Aiglon. “I started off pretty slow but I caught up fast,” she says. No wonder: Alexandra has worked hard, going out to train with an instructor at every possible opportunity during term time over the past couple of years, as well as practising in the mountains at home. Her peers and instructors can’t believe how quickly she has progressed, with one teacher describing her as “embodying the spirit of snowboarding”.

Alexandra sometimes boards with a close friend who took up boarding at Aiglon around the same time she did. But mostly she prefers to hit the slopes by herself. “I can zone out from the world, going through the clouds, through the snow, through the wind. When I snowboard, I feel really free. And when I’m going through a hard time, snowboarding allows me to get away. I put on music and just escape.”

While not a naturally competitive type, Alexandra is not afraid to push herself, always striving to improve her technique on tricks, for example. She competed for the first time at Aiglon last winter, winning a silver medal in the freestyle jumps contest and a bronze in the girls’ slalom. “The competition was very stressful but I tried my best because I wanted to see what I’m capable of.”

No matter how fast Alexandra goes or how high she jumps, however, safety is key. She prefers not to board in spots where the slopes are overly icy or bumpy, but she knows it’s important to practise should she ever find herself on such terrain. “I’m very aware that if I’m not safe and I hurt myself, then that means I can’t snowboard,” she says. Her strategy has proved successful so far, and her improvement on the board has been rapid.

Her favourite spot to snowboard? Easy, she says, it’s up the Chaux Ronde in Villars itself. “There’s one black piste and there’s never anyone there. It’s through the trees and it’s amazing. You have the whole space to yourself and I just get to do what I love, what I enjoy the most in the world.”