Industry News
I had the great privilege of chatting with legendary halfpipe skier Alex Ferreira about the keys to his success from his home in Aspen, Colorado. Ferreira can look back on a perfect season: winning five out of five competitions in the halfpipe on the FIS World Cup circuit, awarding him the Halfpipe Crystal Globe as well as the Overall Park & Pipe Crystal Globe.
In the 2023/2024 season, Ferreira became the first person to win all Halfpipe competitions in the season and the only Halfpipe skier to win the Overall Park & Pipe title. Park & Pipe also includes Big Air and Slopestyle disciplines, but no other skier across the three disciplines was able to show the dominance and consistency Ferreira put down that season. He followed this dominance on the FIS circuit with victories in the X-Games and Dew Tour.
Looking like a once-in-a-lifetime super talent, one can be forgiven for thinking that Ferreira was born this way, that he has always been this extraordinary talent whose path to this legendary season was paved with successes, but the 29-year-old admits it was far from that. “I was the worst kid in the ski club, and I had to work twice as hard just to get half as much. There were way more kids that had more sponsors, more opportunities, more of everything.” The Aspen-born son of State-level relay runner Colleen and Argentian soccer player Marcello Ferreira, however, never quit and diligently improved his skiing and went on to win his first major competition in 2012, when he secured first place in the Gatorade Freelow Finals Youth Halfpipe at Snowbasin, Utah. The victory earned him an invite to his first-ever Dew Tour professional competition in December 2013 at Breckenridge, Colorado. Ferreira went on to win the Dew Tour a total of four times.
What set him apart and got him to where he is now is the simple joy of skiing: “I just loved it!” Ferreira says that he just kept at it for the love of it, “I just loved being around all my best friends who are skiers, I loved the culture around it, I loved the professionals. I loved watching them. I loved being one. I think along with loving it, it was having the persistence and the willingness to never give up that got me to where I am now.”
“Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”
— Dr. Seuss
Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought he would have gotten to where he is now. “If you had told me when I was 10 years old that this is where I’m gonna be, I would not have believed you,” the freestyle skier admits. It’s a great message to aspiring athletes of all ages, and if he had one piece of advice he could give to his 16-year-old self, it would be to believe more in yourself. “I keep telling parents: Let the kids have fun, let them enjoy their lives, nothing else matters. And work hard it, and you never know where you may go.”
Skiing and snowboarding come with a strain on the body that is quite different from other sports. A study by Muller et al. found, for example, that male, elite Giant Slalom skiers peak at approximately 28 years. Furthermore, the inherent risk of injuries eliminates many skiers at an early age, and the road to the World Cup level is more akin to a marathon than a sprint, with Ferreira agreeing by saying, “I saw kids my age try to sprint marathons and blow up. They destroyed their bodies, their parents came down on them hard, and it never worked out. And then I saw kids that just did the slow burn. They were the worst, and then they simply slowly turned into the best. And that’s much more of who I am and what I believe in. Great things take time. Just like anything in this world.”
Great things came for Ferreira eventually, but you may wonder what is next for someone at the top of his game. He still wants to accomplish things: winning an ESPYS, winning the 2025 World Championships in Corvatsch, Switzerland, and winning the Olympics in 2026 in Milano Cortina (the Halfpipe event will be held in Livigno).
His plan to achieve these goals is to keep doing what he has been doing for the last few years. Ferreira shares that he likes to mix it up in training. Aside from on-snow summer training at Mount Hood, Oregon, and Cadrona, New Zealand, and the classical airbag, foam pit, and water-ramp sessions, Ferreira throws in gym sessions, bike rides, yoga, sprints, hot tub sessions with affirmations, steam room schwitzes with visualization, stretching and a lot of rollerblading. “It’s been a key to my success this past year – as well as ice skating. So I just go to the ice skating rink and run drills. Literally anything and everything I can think of to keep the training a bit less monotonous.”
While his training is not monotonous, he does have a rather regimented nutrition plan: “I eat the same thing for breakfast: oatmeal, goji berries, cacao nibs, cashew butter, and honey. Then I drink ginger turmeric tea with honey as well. And then to get boosted up and keep the energy going, I have a sparkling-orange CELSIUS to keep me going.”
Aside from food fueling him, Ferreira loves music to take him to the next level, to “flip me into a different gear,” as he puts it. He does not have a go-to song but rather loves assembling weekly playlists from music he hears around him, be it in restaurants or a friend’s car, and he uses the playlist to find a melody that makes him want to go as hard as possible. “It’s a different song every time. Sometimes, if it’s a really good one, I will repeat it, but I try not to.”
You’d be forgiven to think that after all these years and all that routine, someone like Ferreira does not get nervous before a competition, but even at 29, the halfpipe pro confesses to still experiencing nerves before competitions. “When I was 10 years old, I would come onto the soccer pitch, and I remember feeling like I was dry-heaving before the game […] and I feel the exact same way now that I am 29 years old and I am competing at the world level — at the highest level in the world.” Ferreira mulls over these words and adds, “and honestly, if you don’t feel like that, that might be a little worrisome. Because there is a lot on the line regarding what we do. I always say: It’s good to be nervous because then you are on your toes. So absolutely: I feel fear; I am human! If you’re not scared, you have a death wish!”
“Per aspera ad astra”
— Latin for “through hardship to the stars.”
Like many other successful athletes, Ferreira is not just a talented skier but spent his youth playing soccer. His father hoped to turn his son into a soccer player like him. The fear and nerves he still experiences are not the only thing that remains of his days as a soccer player. When asked about people who inspire him, the first two sporting legends that come to his mind are soccer players Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. “I just think the fact that [Messi] won his biggest achievement at the end of his career and a city of 15 million people were telling him that he can’t do it, and he does it, and then all of a sudden he wins them all over is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard of.” It is certainly a recurring theme for Ferreira that he has overcome adversity and feelings of mediocrity by persisting in a sport he loves. He identifies with the struggle and adversity and ultimately overcame both before reaching the peak: “I think Cristiano was never that gifted. He was gifted with some talent, but he has worked and dedicated his entire life to football and doing his absolute best, and I am humbled to hear about both of their experiences.”
I feel very humbled that I had the chance to chat with Alex Ferreira, and I hope he knows he is an inspiration to many aspiring athletes. There is a certain humility to Ferreira combined with a quiet wisdom that has come from a youth of being told he wasn’t the best. He does not take his success for granted. He knows how hard he worked to get there and how lucky he is. “I am lucky enough to have wonderful people and sponsors around me like CELSIUS. I feel grateful to be around solid brands that I align with. They are healthy, and I am the healthiest person I know and want to inspire that way.” He is sure his path was always to become an athlete, “If I could not be a skier, I would still definitely be an athlete,” and it is certainly not a surprise since Ferreira exudes contagious energy and zest for life.
