FINAL || Taylor Lundquist vs. Alais Develay || SLVSH CUP GRANDVALIRA '25

Profile and significance

Alaïs Develay is a French freeski talent from the Pyrenees whose rapid rise has come through the culture-shaping spaces of street, creative park sessions, and open-format contests. Born in 2002 and influenced by the training and terrain access around Font-Romeu, she broke out in spring 2024 at the Jib League stop hosted by Sugar Bowl Resort, where she was tapped mid-event to move from the open division into the pros. In 2025 she added a historic bracket run at Grandvalira’s night park and finished the year by winning the women’s ski title at Rock A Rail’s Hintertux opener. Riding for the purpose-driven ski brand 1000 Skis and in boots from Phaenom Footwear, Develay has become a reference for how the next wave of women’s freeskiing blends style, creativity, and pressure-proof decision-making.

Competitive arc and key venues

The competitive arc that put Develay on more fans’ radar starts with the Jib League format—open jams that feed into a pro session—where her Sugar Bowl performance in April 2024 set the tone for a busy twelve months. The following winter she appeared in the first-ever women’s SLVSH Cup bracket at Sunset Park Peretol in Andorra, a night-time venue inside Grandvalira that rewards line reading, variety, and trick precision under lights. She also featured at the U.S. stop in Colorado, where Jib League set up at Woodward Copper, adding to her resume of high-visibility sessions. In October 2025 she opened the Rock A Rail Ski & Snowboard Tour with a win at the Hintertux Park Opening—an urban-style rail event staged on the glacier-side plaza and operated by the Rock A Rail crew, with the result posted by the organizers and the event site across their channels. The throughline in all these starts is that they privilege relevance over rank: the ability to adapt, to find original lines on a shared setup, and to land clean when it matters.

How they ski: what to watch for

Develay skis with a “quiet approach, decisive exit” philosophy that transfers from city features to resort parks. Approaches stay flat and composed—bases neutral, hands steady—until she builds a firm platform and pops cleanly. Rotations stay axis-honest, with grabs connected early to stabilize the shape; landings are driven back to the fall line and re-centered immediately so speed survives the trick. On rails, watch for square entries, a clear plan for off-axis exits, and an economy of movement that makes technical choices look simple. She’s equally comfortable switching stance through a line and using butters to set spin without telegraphing, a habit that plays well in formats like SLVSH where variety, control, and inventiveness are scored by peers as much as by any panel.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Creative circuits test patience as much as they showcase flair, and Develay’s progression reflects both. She has bounced back from hard slams, kept traveling with the community that supports her, and used each stop to add one more repeatable habit—quiet run-ins, early grabs, exits that preserve momentum. Brand stories and athlete features have followed, highlighting the same traits that show up in her contest clips: confidence to try the unusual line first, and discipline to do it again with cleaner timing. The influence is especially visible in women’s street and park skiing, where athletes borrow concrete ideas from her runs—speed choices, trick order, and how to turn a busy build into a readable sequence.

Geography that built the toolkit

The Pyrenees shape the base of Develay’s skiing. Everyday laps and club culture around Font-Romeu mean varied snowpacks, changing light, and lots of repetition—conditions that reward balance and pop timing. On tour, California’s Sugar Bowl introduced a high-energy crowd and quick-format open sessions where presence under pressure mattered as much as difficulty. In Colorado, Woodward Copper added longer rails and dialed jump lines that favor grab security and switch control. Andorra’s Sunset Park Peretol, open at night, sharpened visibility management and line creativity in floodlights. Austria’s Rock A Rail stop at the Hintertux Park Opening demanded urban instincts on a purpose-built plaza, a canvas that suits her ability to turn small set-ups into big statements.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

Develay’s kit reflects function over flash. She rides 1000 Skis, a skier-owned brand built around predictable flex and stable mounts that make switch approaches and locked-in grabs feel natural. Her boots come from Phaenom Footwear, whose hybrid constructions emphasize progressive flex and rebound—useful when repeated impacts on rails and hard landings tax ankles and knees. For skiers looking to copy the feel (not just the stickers), the practical lessons are simple: choose a twin with enough length to land centered without wheelie; detune tips and tails lightly for rail forgiveness while keeping edges honest underfoot for icy in-runs; and keep wax fresh to avoid speed traps on spring salt. The small rituals—edge touch-ups after rail days, stance checks before first hits, and a repeatable warm-up trick ladder—unlock more progress than chasing another spin.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Fans care about Alaïs Develay because her skiing is both readable and original. She doesn’t overwhelm a course with volume; she edits. One or two distinctive choices on rails, one jump trick that fits the speed and the build, and a finish that keeps momentum alive. That approach is why she resonated at Sugar Bowl, why her bracket runs at Sunset Park Peretol replay so well, and why her Rock A Rail win at the Hintertux Park Opening mattered for women’s street skiing. For progressing riders, the takeaways are concrete: set a deliberate speed floor, build a clean platform, connect the grab early, and land back to the fall line. Do those things and style follows. Develay’s trajectory—from Pyrenean laps to international sessions—shows how that discipline scales from local parks to the culture’s most-watched stages.

Profile and significance

Taylor Lundquist is an American freeskier from Utah whose imprint sits squarely in urban and street skiing while reaching into slopestyle, streetstyle, and the new women’s knuckle-huck era. Raised around Park City and lapping the parks at Brighton Resort, she became the first woman ever invited to X Games Real Ski, a milestone that widened the lane for female street skiers and cemented her cultural relevance beyond rankings. She has appeared at X Games Aspen in women’s Ski Knuckle Huck and Street Style, reached the podium at Dew Tour Streetstyle, and collected “Skier of the Year” accolades within the core scene—all while keeping her main focus on filming. For fans and progressing riders, Lundquist matters because she made style-driven, camera-literate street skiing legible to a broader audience and proved that a film-first career can still shape the contest conversation.

Her visibility is amplified by distinctive brand work and a growing body of video parts and short films. Between edits with independent crews and collaborations with major outdoor labels, she occupies a space where aesthetic judgment—spot choice, trick selection, line composition—carries as much weight as degrees of spin. That balance of influence and output places her among the notable modern figures in women’s freeskiing, particularly on steel.

Competitive arc and key venues

Lundquist’s competitive footprint has been selective but impactful. After early years in the Park City pipeline and regional starts, she pivoted toward streetstyle formats and high-visibility showcases. Dew Tour Streetstyle gave her a podium stage in a rail-first environment that mirrors her film identity. X Games invited her to the Real Ski video contest as the event’s first female competitor, a landmark for representation in a format historically dominated by men. In 2024 and 2025 she slid into X Games Aspen’s women’s Ski Knuckle Huck and Street Style fields, bringing her urban timing to an arena setting under lights at Buttermilk Mountain. While these appearances did not yield hardware, they confirmed her position as a standard-bearer for style-forward skiing in competitive spaces.

Geographically, familiarity breeds execution. Home mileage at Park City Mountain and Brighton Resort built the repetition and speed-read instincts that transfer cleanly to rail jams and knuckle formats. Filming blocks in rail-dense towns and travel for street projects transformed those instincts into segments with replay value, the true currency of the street skier.

How they ski: what to watch for

Lundquist skis with a relaxed upper body, tall approach, and a calm, late commitment to axis that makes tricks read clearly on camera. On rails she favors linkable lines over one-off hammers, pairing spin-on/pretzel-off variations with subtle body language that keeps edges quiet and shoulders level. Look for long, honest grab holds on medium-degree spins, controlled body position through blind landings, and the restraint to leave room for speed into the next feature. Her knuckle-huck entries showcase that same timing: feathered edge sets, low-impact takeoffs, and tweaks that reshape silhouette without forcing amplitude she doesn’t need.

Run and segment construction are deliberate. Instead of stacking difficulty indiscriminately, she sequences tricks so each shot or hit sets up the next—an opening that establishes style and rhythm, a mid-line feature that adds technical density, and a closer that rewards viewers paying attention to nuance. The result is skiing that looks inevitable when it works: nothing rushed, nothing wasted, every frame readable.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Street skiing requires a different resilience than contest circuits. It means night sessions, imperfect run-ins, hand-shoveling, and walking away when a spot isn’t safe. Lundquist’s filmography displays that patience and persistence. A notable part of her influence is simply showing up in spaces where women were underrepresented—then letting the footage carry the argument. Being the first woman tapped for Real Ski was more than a personal credential; it reframed expectations about who belongs in the heaviest urban contest of the year. Subsequent showings at Aspen and her continued output with core crews and brands kept that door open for the next wave.

Her filmmaking voice extends beyond tricks. She’s directed and produced her own projects, leaning into narratives that foreground feeling, music, and scene—proof that the modern freeskier can be both athlete and author. That agency over how skiing is presented is a key part of her legacy so far.

Geography that built the toolkit

Utah’s Wasatch front shaped Lundquist’s toolkit. Lapping the parks at Brighton Resort and the larger network at Park City Mountain enabled high-volume rail practice and jump repetition across variable winter light and snow. Those conditions forged habits that read in her street segments: speed checks that don’t kill momentum, conservative takeoff marks on sketchy in-runs, and a preference for features that allow clean exits into natural lines. When she travels for spots, that base shows up as calm decisions and tidy landings on first-and-second-hit attempts.

Occasional stints at spring glaciers and early-season rope-tow parks keep the muscle memory fresh and add the surface variety that keeps edges honest—another reason her skiing translates cleanly between film and comp formats.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

Lundquist rides for Line Skis, including a park-tuned pro model that prioritizes pop, durability, and a flex window friendly to both rails and smaller jumps. Optics come via Smith Optics, useful when low-contrast street nights or flat-light park laps make detail recognition a performance variable. Outerwear and project collaborations with The North Face have supported her film-first calendar. For skiers translating this to their own setups, the takeaways are straightforward: choose a twin-tip with durable edges and a mount near center if rails and switch landings are your daily bread; keep bindings and boots tuned for cross-loaded landings; and treat lens choice as equipment, not accessory, when visibility is marginal.

Equally practical is her workflow: scout spots for run-in quality and safe exit, budget time for build and de-ice, and prioritize clips that preserve form over single-frame shock value. The best edit is the one you can still ski after.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Taylor Lundquist offers a blueprint for a film-centric freeski career that still moves the wider culture. Fans get segments and live appearances that privilege style and coherence over noise—clean blind 2s, controlled presses, held grabs, and lines that link. Progressing riders get permission and a plan: build fundamentals on repeatable features, learn to read speed and surface, keep grab standards high, and design shots and runs that make sense to the eye. In a sport that increasingly values both contest moments and durable media, Lundquist remains a reference for how street, park, and storytelling can add up to real impact.