Andreas Herranz - Big Air &amp; Slopestyle France

Hometown: Izaourt, France | Active: 2017-present | Known for: ninth at the 2024 Chur World Cup big air, French slopestyle and big air titles in 2026, Mediappiness | Disciplines: big air, slopestyle, backcountry freestyle

In April 2024, Andreas Herranz moved through the Lyngen Alps on snowshoes with Julian Caillet, Leo Fourcade and Hugo Monmont, carrying shovels into the mountains above the Norwegian fjords. The group spent a month away from prepared snowparks, reaching their terrain without motorized access and shaping freestyle features by hand. Jumps grew as the trip progressed, transferring the movements of park skiing into natural snow. For Herranz, the trip placed a World Cup big air and slopestyle skier inside a project where the work began long before anyone left the ground.

Font-Romeu 2017: from Peyragudes to freestyle

Herranz first stood on skis at two and a half at Peyragudes with his father, Jean-Noël Herranz. By September 2017 he had entered the freestyle development programme at Font-Romeu, training under Sébastien Fouin after earlier work with freestyle coach Vincent Gramond and alpine coach Joël Gaillard. In April 2018 he became French cadet freestyle champion and finished ninth among all categories in the national competition. His training mixed skiing with trampoline, roller sessions, gymnastics, strength work and water-jump practice.

Font-Romeu 2022: entering the World Cup

Herranz made his first FIS World Cup start at Font-Romeu on 16 January 2022. The event returned him to the Pyrenean venue where he had trained as a teenager, now against an international slopestyle field. He finished 28th, while Andri Ragettli won ahead of Ben Barclay and Edouard Therriault. Herranz added another World Cup start at Tignes in March before moving into a more regular programme of international slopestyle and big air contests.

Mediappiness 2020–2024: parks reach the Lyngen Alps

Young's World preceded that World Cup period. Released in 2020, it was the first ski movie Herranz directed, sharing directing duties with Julian Caillet, Titouan Goguillon and Hugo Monmont while also appearing among the riders. The project followed a young international crew through snowparks in Austria, Quebec, the United States and France, with additional skiing in Andorra and the Netherlands. Its iF3 presentation established Herranz on both sides of the camera.

Smash changed the terrain in 2024. Hugo Monmont filmed and edited Herranz, Caillet, Fourcade and himself during their month in northern Norway. Rather than using an existing park, the crew climbed into the Lyngen Alps, built its own jumps and worked through progressively larger backcountry features. Herranz and Caillet skied back-to-back sections as Mediappiness made its first project based entirely around backcountry freestyle.

The other selected Mediappiness projects are 2021's S.W.A, directed by Hugo Monmont and filmed between Les 2 Alpes, street locations, Canada, Les Arcs and Leysin, and 2022's Bon Diez, shot after early sessions at Chamrousse before the crew travelled to Austria.

COMMENCAL 2023: athlete feedback shapes skis

Herranz's work with COMMENCAL extended beyond appearances in ski media. During development of the brand's 2023 snow range, feedback from Herranz, Paul Vieuxtemps and Julian Caillet fed into changes to ski cores, base material and the number of available sizes in athlete-oriented models. The programme linked his park skiing to equipment development while Mediappiness continued providing a separate outlet for crew films and street, resort and backcountry sessions.

Chur 2024: breaking into a World Cup final

The 2023/24 World Cup season started with 34th in big air at Chur and 35th in slopestyle at Stubai before Herranz reached 25th in the Tignes big air in March 2024. The following October he returned to Chur for a course built around a 50-metre in-run at 40 degrees, a 19-metre distance from take-off to knoll and a 38-degree landing. He progressed to the ten-man final and finished ninth, between Troy Podmilsak in eighth and Leo Landroe in tenth.

That ninth place remains his first World Cup top ten. Matej Svancer won the event ahead of Tormod Frostad and Dylan Deschamps. The result also moved Herranz beyond the level required by a simple World Cup-start profile: after several seasons trying to convert qualification runs into finals, Chur gave him a final-round result against one of the strongest big air fields on the calendar.

St. Moritz 2025: World Championships season

Herranz's 2024/25 big air campaign continued with 32nd in Beijing, 21st in Klagenfurt and 34th at Kreischberg. The season then brought his first senior FIS World Championships selection at St. Moritz/Engadin, where France entered him in both slopestyle and big air. He finished 45th in the slopestyle competition. Back in France, the national championships at Vars produced a different outcome: Herranz took second in senior men's slopestyle behind Noah Viande.

Val Thorens 2026: two French titles

The 2025/26 winter included another World Cup big air start at Tignes, where Herranz finished 27th on 20 March. Two weeks later the French championships at Val Thorens ended with titles in both of his main disciplines. On 2 April he won the senior slopestyle ahead of Clément Naudin and Rémy Collomby. On 3 April he followed with the big air title ahead of Timothé Roch and Alexis Ghisleni, putting both national championships into the same week.

Les 2 Alpes 2026: the Mediappiness Invitational

Herranz remained involved in the crew side of freeskiing after the competition season. In June 2026, he joined Julian Caillet, Hugo Monmont and Mateo Socquet in shaping the first Mediappiness Invitational on the Les 2 Alpes glacier. The setup used rope tows, challenge rails, a rainbow rail and kickers before the riding moved to a backcountry hip. Roughly twenty invited riders joined nearly one hundred amateurs for the gathering.

In June 2026, the first Mediappiness Invitational brought roughly twenty invited riders to Les 2 Alpes, with Herranz among the four skiers who had shaped the glacier park before the event.