“Everyone loves a comeback story”

He had it all at 22. Then he lost his place among the elite. After three years, 11 months and two days without a victory, Maxime Chabloz is finally finding his way back to the top.

At just 22 years old, Maxime Chabloz had already achieved what most freeriders spend their entire careers chasing. Three victories in his rookie season, including the prestigious Xtreme Verbier, had earned him the 2022 Freeride World Tour title and established him as one of the sport's brightest talents.

His rise had been nothing short of spectacular. Crowned Junior Freeride World Champion in 2019, the Swiss rider arrived on the FWT Pro Tour with the confidence and fearlessness of a newcomer who had nothing to lose. Combining an aggressive approach with massive airs and an impressive level of technical skill, Chabloz quickly made his mark on the world's biggest freeride stage.

By the end of his debut season, he had won three events and secured the overall title, a remarkable achievement for a rookie. At an age when most athletes are still finding their feet at the highest level, Chabloz had already reached the summit.

But staying there would prove far more difficult than getting there.

The following season, Chabloz remained among the world's best, reaching the podium twice and finishing second overall. It was another strong campaign, yet one that marked the beginning of a gradual decline. The victories stopped coming, and what initially looked like a temporary dip in form soon turned into a much longer struggle.

In 2024, Chabloz failed to reach the podium in any of his five competitions, with sixth place his best result. The following winter proved even more difficult. Once known for his ability to combine ambitious tricks with clean execution, he struggled to put together a complete run, repeatedly seeing his chances disappear through mistakes and missed landings. His best finish of the 2025 season was 15th place, a stark contrast to the performances that had made him FWT Champion just three years earlier.

The consequences were significant. Having failed to make the Cut, the mid-season qualification threshold that determines which athletes advance towards the FWT Finals, Chabloz lost his place on the Pro Tour.

Three years after reaching the very top of the sport, he found himself on the outside looking in.

For an athlete who had experienced success so early in his career, the setback could have been difficult to overcome. But rather than walking away, Chabloz chose to take the only route available to him: the FWT Challenger Series, where former Pro Tour riders and rising talents compete for a limited number of places on the following season's roster.

It was an opportunity to rebuild, although his first competition suggested that the struggles of the previous two seasons were far from behind him.

At the opening Challenger event in Montafon, Austria, Chabloz attempted one of the biggest backflips of the day, only to land on his back and finish 10th. It was another frustrating result, and one that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the mistakes that had cost him so dearly on the Pro Tour.

His second chance came on home soil, at the next Challenger event in Switzerland, where he was returning to a face on which he had previously finished second and third. This time, however, Chabloz managed to bring together everything that had been missing from his recent performances.

With two 360s, two massive airs and a backflip, the Swiss rider delivered a technically demanding run, landing every trick cleanly and combining the ambition that had always defined his skiing with the consistency he had struggled to find.

For the first time in nearly four years, everything came together.

Three years, 11 months and two days after his last victory, Maxime Chabloz was finally back on the top step of the podium.

The victory did not erase the disappointment of the previous seasons, nor did it guarantee his return to the Pro Tour. But after so many competitions spent searching for a clean run, it offered something arguably just as important as the result itself: renewed confidence in his ability to compete at the highest level.

That confidence would prove crucial over the remainder of the Challenger season. Although Chabloz did not manage to reach another podium, he found a consistency that had been largely absent from his skiing in recent years. A sixth-place finish at Kitzsteinhorn was followed by fourth-place results in Obertauern and Monterosa, allowing him to steadily build his position in the overall standings.

By March, he had secured fourth place in the Challenger rankings, earning one of the coveted qualification spots for the 2027 Freeride World Tour.

For Chabloz, the achievement marks the end of a difficult chapter and the beginning of another opportunity at the highest level. The rider who burst onto the scene in 2022 as a fearless rookie now returns with a very different perspective, shaped not only by the experience of winning a FWT Champion title but also by the disappointment of losing his place among the elite.

His comeback has not been defined by a sudden return to dominance. Instead, it has been a gradual process of rebuilding confidence, rediscovering consistency and proving that the talent which once took him to the top is still there.

When he first joined the Tour, Chabloz had nothing to prove and everything to gain. Five years later, he returns knowing just how difficult it can be to earn a place among the world's best, and what it takes to fight his way back.

As he put it himself after securing his qualification:

“Everyone loves a comeback story.”

And after everything he has been through, Maxime Chabloz has written one of his own.

Welcome back, Champion.