France’s Perrine Lafont, the current world mogul champion, will not compete this season.
“After a very intense sports season last year, Perrine Lafont wants to take a few months off in order to better prepare for future sporting events, in particular the 2025 World Championships and the 2026 Olympic Games.” thinking about.” According to the press release.
Lafont, 25, is a 2018 Olympic gold medalist (the youngest gold medalist in Olympic freestyle skiing history) and a five-time world champion between moguls and dual moguls (a new Olympic event in 2026). There is.
Last season, she swept world titles in two events for the first time, a year after entering the Olympics as the favorite and finishing fourth.
In “Strong,” a film released last month about the mental health of France’s top athletes, Lafont said she suffered in 2019 due to the expectations, pressure and scrutiny that came with becoming an Olympic champion at the age of 19. He said he wanted to quit the sport. She said it was the beginning of the “first difficult moment” of her career.
After winning the world championships last February, she spoke about the difficulty of returning from the 2022 Olympics.
“How many times have I wanted to quit because I couldn’t take it anymore?” she said in French, according to the film’s subtitles. “That’s why you should never give up. It will pay off in the end.”
Lafont, whose father is a ski instructor and mother is ski club president, started moguls at the age of five. She made her World Cup debut in 2014 at the age of 15, and she has competed in every race at this circuit for the past nine seasons.
American Jaelyn Kauf, an Olympic silver medalist, won silver behind Lafont in moguls and dual moguls at last season’s world championships.
There are no world championships this winter. The World Cup season begins in Luka, Finland on December 2nd and runs until March.