Maude Raymond

Montreal / Quebec, Canada | Active: 2007-2019 public record | Known for: Maad Maude, FREESKIER Female Skier of the Year, Nine Queens Best Style, Armada | Current: Retired/inactive FIS athlete and Maad Love founder

Keystone Rails With Style Before Score

The rail line at Keystone sat under clear Colorado light, fast enough to punish hesitation and clean enough to expose every movement. Maude Raymond did not attack features like a skier trying to prove difficulty first. She moved through them with shoulders quiet, skis light, and a kind of pressure that made rails look less mechanical. That became her signature. Raymond belonged to the generation that pushed women’s freeskiing through slopestyle, X Games, Nine Queens and web edits, but her strongest legacy is not a single medal. It is the way she made style feel like substance.

Montreal Before The Whistler Turn

Raymond was born in Montreal and grew up surrounded by sport. Her Maad Love biography describes dirt bikes, gymnastics, ski racing and competitive diving before freeskiing became the center of her life. That multi-sport base matters because her skiing never looked rigid. Diving gave her air awareness and body control; ski racing gave her edge pressure; gymnastics and general athleticism gave her confidence in awkward positions. The turn toward freeskiing came through her older brother Frank after a trip to Whistler. By nineteen, she had found the sport that matched her movement best.

The Contest Years Before The Edit Era

Raymond’s early professional record sat inside the slopestyle system. Stanton Company’s profile lists career markers including sixth at the 2007 World Skiing Invitational, first at the 2009 Queens Cup Open, third at The North Face Park and Pipe Open Series in 2011, and ninth in X Games slopestyle that same year. ESPN’s Winter X Games 15 results confirm her ninth-place finish in Aspen, in a final won by Kaya Turski ahead of Keri Herman and Grete Eliassen. That field shows the level of the moment: Canadian dominance, American depth, and women’s slopestyle moving quickly toward the Olympic era.

Northstar And The X Games Door

The North Face Park and Pipe Open at Northstar gave Raymond a direct competitive purpose. First Tracks reported that she entered the event specifically to earn an X Games spot after returning from a knee injury. She left with that invitation. The detail is important because it shows her career was not only about casual style or soft edits. Raymond had to fight through formal qualification, injury recovery and judged slopestyle pressure. In that period, rails, jumps, switch landings, corks, grabs and full-course consistency decided whether a skier stayed inside the most visible events.

Nine Queens And The Best Style Moment

In 2013, Nine Queens at Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis gave Raymond the award that most clearly matched her identity. Newschoolers’ event results list Lisa Zimmermann winning the Big Air competition, Coline Ballet-Baz taking Ruler of the Week, and Maude Raymond winning Best Style. Nine Queens mattered because it mixed contest riding, photo shoots, film sessions, heli time and a giant castle-shaped feature built for women’s progression. Raymond did not need to win the main big-air ranking for the week to carry influence. The Best Style award described what skiers already saw: she made tricks look personal.

Female Skier Of The Year With A Natural Line

FREESKIER named Raymond its 2013 Female Skier of the Year, framing her as one of the most stylish park skiers in the sport. The profile also captured a useful contradiction. Coaches reportedly told her to stop trying to look good while training with Team Canada, but Raymond explained that she was simply doing what felt comfortable. That distinction defines her skiing. Style was not decoration added after the trick. It came from the way she set her edge, moved through the takeoff, spotted the rail, held the grab and landed without forcing the shape.

Maad Maude After The Injury List

Raymond’s career was repeatedly interrupted by injuries, including multiple ACL injuries and a shoulder injury around 2013. Stanton Company and later FREESKIER coverage both tie those periods to the rise of Maad Maude, her web series. That shift changed her public profile. Instead of disappearing during rehab, she used video to stay present in the ski community. Maad Maude became a way to celebrate skiing, travel, friends, recovery, humor and personal style. It was not a classic contest résumé project. It showed a skier building her own media lane before athlete-led brands became standard.

Armada, SPY And The Product Side Of Style

Raymond’s sponsor history also reflects her image. Armada lists her as a Canadian athlete with nineteen years connected to the brand, and describes her through flow, park skiing, groomers, backcountry and a unique way of seeing the mountain. FREESKIER reported in 2014 that she had added SPY and Discrete Headwear while already known for Maad Maude. Maad Love later connected her identity to a clothing line, goggles, a pro-model jacket and a North American progression camp. That matters because Raymond’s style was marketable without feeling detached from skiing. Her clothing, edits and sponsors all followed the same language.

How She Made Park Skiing Look Softer

Technically, Raymond’s skiing stood out through softness and timing. She was not the skier who tried to make every feature look violent. Her best clips used smooth takeoffs, clean rail pressure, patient grabs, switch landings, small upper-body movements and controlled exits. On rails, she looked centered without becoming stiff. In the air, she carried diving-influenced awareness rather than panic. That made her skiing readable for younger women entering the park. She proved that technical skiing did not need to copy the hardest or most aggressive style in the men’s field to be taken seriously.

The Women’s Freeski Moment She Helped Shape

Raymond’s career crossed a crucial period in women’s freeskiing. Kaya Turski, Keri Herman, Grete Eliassen, Kim Lamarre, Anna Segal, Devin Logan and Dara Howell were pushing slopestyle toward X Games prominence and Olympic inclusion. Raymond’s role in that group was different. She was not the most decorated contest skier in the field, but she gave the era a visual reference point. Her skiing made style part of the women’s progression conversation. Nine Queens, Maad Maude and FREESKIER’s award helped make that influence visible.

The Maude Raymond Legacy Now

FIS lists Raymond as inactive, but Armada still presents her as part of its athlete world, and Maad Love keeps the broader Maad Maude identity alive. Her legacy sits between contest history and creative independence: X Games finalist field, Nine Queens Best Style, FREESKIER Female Skier of the Year, long Armada connection, injury comebacks, athlete-led web media and progression work for women in skiing. Raymond’s archive matters because it captures a skier who turned style into a career argument. She did not only land tricks. She changed how they could look.