Aymar Navarro The best freerider in Spain!
It is difficult for anyone involved in the world of skiing and freeride not to know Aymar Navarro Comballe, better known as Aymar Navarro. He is a professional freeride skier who is among the best off-piste skiers in the world. And yes, it is Spanish. Specifically from the Valle de Arán region, a Spanish region located on the northern slope of the Pyrenees in the province of Lleida, Catalonia. This 31-year-old skier is one of the best-known faces on the national and European scene as far as freeride champions are concerned.
The Catalan put on his first skis at the age of three, because until he was two he used to go down the alpine ski slopes in the backpack that his father carried on his back, something that made him appreciate this sport from a very young age . Over time, he began to practice and compete in alpine skiing, and even tried his hand at snowboarding. However, he always felt a somewhat special calling practicing freeriding. He spent 14 winters doing alpine skiing first and successfully competing in downhill and slalom, but when he reached adolescence, after a bad stage, he decided to hang up his skis as a surprise to everyone.
His mother, who defines him as a “restless ass” to this day, recounts that at that time Aymar got tired of what he was doing and for a year he decided to stop and do nothing. But it was the following season when that impulse that defines him was reborn and he said "I'm going to try" and surprised everyone by practicing off-piste. Throughout his life, Aymar had not understood how people could like virgin snow so much, since he had barely paid attention to it during his adolescence when he competed and practiced alpine skiing for so many years. However, it was thanks to great influences such as Suso Folgar and Alex Martínes that he quickly began to stand out from the rest of the people who practiced freeriding at the time.
It was due to his main level of alpine skiing and his great passion for the mountains that his teammates immediately identified the great potential of the Catalan, and saw him as one of the next great promises in the world of off-piste skiing. The great passion that the Catalan feels for the mountains, in addition to his strong personality and stubborn and competitive character, which make him always achieve what he sets out to do, has led Aymar Navarro to the world top of the freeride circuit together with people from other countries. such as Switzerland, the United States, or France, which are the great dominators of the off-piste ski specialty.
"Being in the top 10 is becoming more and more difficult, the youngest skiers climb very hard and fast, many of them already have more freestyle skiing with tricks that are being rewarded a lot in current competitions"
- Aymar Navarro
What was the Catalan's first competition?
Aymar Navarro had his first great adventure in the elite when he competed in the Freeride World Qualifier and received an invitation in 2015 to participate as a local in the Andorra event. It was in this way that he became the first Spaniard to compete in such an event in the FWT. After this, in 2016 he repeated the participation and a year later, he achieved a historic third place, which helped him earn a fixed place on the circuit from that moment on. Likewise, in 2019 he managed to get into the top 10 after the first four tests, thus being able to compete with the top 12 in the grand final of the Tour, in Switzerland, at the legendary Bec de Rosses in Verbier. It was a risky fall that left him in 12th place in the standings, quite a milestone at the time. What Aymar Navarro stands out as a skier is a Big Mountain athlete. The Catalan skis very fast, he likes narrow and very steep channels, as well as rock jumps that are unreachable for many. The vertiginous lines have been the ones that have carried Aymar's stamp and the ones that have taken him to the top in the world of Freeride. Obviously, all these dangerous modalities carry risks that have caused serious accidents.
It was in 2013, while the freerider was recording a spot for one of his sponsors, when he got trapped in an avalanche. Luckily, by going well equipped, everything was left in a scare whose video ended up going viral on the network. For freerider athletes like Aymar Navarro falls are also part of the game and especially in competition. When he is forced to take risks is when the falls can be more difficult, as for example in the last test of the Tour in Kicking Horse, Golden BC, in Canada, where he suffered a hard fall when jumping one of the sections with quite dangerous rocks. Fortunately, it did not involve serious injuries and he was able to recover the participation of the next FWT competitions.
In the same way, freeriding is not the only hobby of the Catalan. Aymar Navarro has many other hobbies, such as cycling, or also his participation as a volunteer for the Vall D'Aran fire brigade. Despite this, the freerider is clear that his biggest hobby is being able to ski and enjoy the snow and the mountains with his friends. As an essential part of his travel and sports career, he usually records films about his trips in which he seeks to "live in winter all year round" in order to enjoy the virgin snow, which has become a vital goal for Spanish skiers. Aymar is passionate about exploring virtually inaccessible terrain and skiing places no one has gone before.
It is together with his partner Txema, who is always loaded with the camera to capture the enormous descents of Aymar; and to Adrià, who, if he ever misses his trip, never fails to edit the projects; They head to South America summer after summer to continue enjoying the winter when the rest of us are drowning in heat dreaming of the sea and the waves.
His most recognized project and the one that has given Aymar the most visibility is the South Lines documentary, in which one can see precisely this eagerness to persecute unexplored sites and new lines. It is an adventure that began years ago and in which both local Chilean and Argentine freeriders have participated, as well as other great names in this discipline such as Marion Haerty or Leo Slemett. Aymar Navarro was awarded the prize for the best European freeskier of the year in 2017. The third edition of the project, South Lines powered by KAYAK, was presented in 2018 and was the successful culmination of the project, with more than 3 million cumulative views on social networks and a premiere that overflowed the Sala Apolo in Barcelona.
"When I am old, I would like to be able to be happy because of the adventures I have lived, and thus always have good stories to tell."
- Aymar Navarro
LEARN EVEN MORE ABOUT AYMAR NAVARRO
Who is Aymar Navarro?
Aymar Navarro is not only a firefighter or one of the most renowned skiers in Spain, but he has become the ambassador of freeride in the Pyrenees thanks to his audiovisual projects -such as South Lines- and his participation in the Freeride World Tour, where the best freeriders in the world compete. When did Aymar Navarro start skiing? Aymar started climbing slopes at the age of 2 and a year later he put on skis for the first time and made his first wedge descents.
What he didn't know then is that those two long boards would become another extension of his body… Where is Aymar Navarro from? Aymar Navarro is from the Aran Valley, one of the great treasures of nature hidden in the Catalan Pyrenees, where he began skiing at the Baqueira Beret resort, a true rider factory thanks to the peculiarities of its mountains and unbeatable level conditions. .
What has Aymar Navarro achieved thanks to the world of Freeride?
Aymar Navarro had his first great adventure in the elite when he competed in the Freeride World Qualifier and received an invitation in 2015 to participate as a local in the Andorra event. It was in this way that he became the first Spaniard to compete in such an event in the FWT. After this, in 2016 he repeated the participation and a year later, he achieved a historic third place, which helped him earn a fixed place on the circuit from that moment on. Likewise, in 2019 he managed to get into the top 10 after the first four tests, thus being able to compete with the top 12 in the grand final of the Tour, in Switzerland, at the legendary Bec de Rosses in Verbier.
It was a risky crash that left him in 12th place in the standings, quite a milestone at the time. What has led Aymar Navarro to succeed in the world of sport? The great passion that the Catalan feels for the mountains, in addition to his strong personality and stubborn and competitive character, which make him always achieve what he sets out to do, has led Aymar Navarro to the world top of the freeride circuit together with people from other countries. such as Switzerland, the United States, or France, which are the great dominators of the off-piste ski specialty.
What are the true adventures that Aymar Navarro is going into?
Aymar is passionate about exploring virtually inaccessible terrain and skiing places no one has ever done before. It is together with his partner Txema, who is always loaded with the camera to capture the enormous descents of Aymar; and to Adrià, who, if he ever misses his trip, never fails to edit the projects; They head to South America summer after summer to continue enjoying the winter when the rest of us are drowning in heat dreaming of the sea and the waves. His most recognized project and the one that has given Aymar the most visibility is the South Lines documentary, which shows precisely this eagerness to pursue unexplored sites and new lines.
This is an adventure that began years ago and in which both local Chilean and Argentine freeriders have participated, as well as other big names in this discipline such as Marion Haerty or Leo Slemett. Aymar Navarro was awarded the prize for the best European freeskier of the year in 2017. The third edition of the project, South Lines powered by KAYAK, was presented in 2018 and was the successful culmination of the project, with more than 3 million cumulative views on social networks and a premiere that overflowed the Sala Apolo in Barcelona.
What is the season in which Aymar Navarro usually skis?
The station where we can find Aymar Navarro practicing his favorite sport is none other than Baqueira Beret. Baqueira Beret is a ski resort located in the Arán Valley (Lérida), in the Catalan Pyrenees, in Spain. Baqueira Beret has a transport capacity of 59,424 skiers per hour, a ski area of 2,166 ha, 161 km of groomed slopes, 7 km of itineraries, 10 km of cross-country skiing and 1,101 meters of unevenness.
What type of skiing does Aymar Navarro practice?
The types of skiing he practices are Freeride and Back Country. Freeride The freeride or off-piste style consists of not following a marked route or doing stunts in jumps, it consists of not following a marked route, but rather the skier chooses one with total freedom. To do this modality you need to go to virgin mountains, with powder snow, significant slopes, obstacles such as stones and jumps, using skis that are wider than normal, and almost always longer!
As for Back Country, it is a type of ski that is not very well known in Spain but is very popular in the United States and the Nordic countries. Its playing field is made up of landscapes that are somewhat more rugged than the long-distance circuits and, of course, without machine-made lanes, but without reaching the blades and slopes where cross-country skiers enjoy.
What is South Lines by Aymar Navarro?
His most recognized project and the one that has given Aymar the most visibility is the South Lines documentary, in which one can see precisely this eagerness to persecute unexplored sites and new lines. It is an adventure that began years ago and in which both local Chilean and Argentine freeriders have participated, as well as other great names in this discipline such as Marion Haerty or Leo Slemett. Aymar Navarro was awarded the prize for the best European freeskier of the year in 2017.
The third edition of the project, South Lines powered by KAYAK, was presented in 2018 and was the successful culmination of the project, with more than 3 million cumulative views on social networks and a premiere that overflowed the Sala Apolo in Barcelona. Also, it's available on Youtube!
