In a telephone interview with AFP from Almaty (Kazakhstan), where she took third place in the race, the 21-year-old champion explains how her decision at the start of the season to "not put herself under pressure" allowed to fly over the world circuit once again.
What is your state of mind after this new title?
Perrine Laffont: I'm really happy, it's incredible to win the globe three races before the end. Now I can unroll, have fun. It had been hard at the start of the season to get back into it after last season, the first training sessions had been difficult, but my team always believed in me, accompanied me in good and bad times.
Dominate the competition so much when you hadn't set yourself any objective, what lessons can be learned?
It teaches me that I am better when I do not take the lead, when I do not think of the result. Sometimes you have to stop thinking too much, always wondering how, why ... You have to have fun, believe in what you have done in training, in everything you have put in place. Suddenly it was a more pleasant season to do than the last, less tiring, because it is the pressure that tires. There it was really a better approach, we managed all this better (...) Today, we tried not to think too much about the globe. Especially since the track was complicated, the snow was very hard, and I did not arrive super serene on the race. Winning the globe today was not my goal, I just wanted to ski well, have fun, be the best I could be.
There are three races left to win the big globe in the general classification of freestyle skiing, is this an additional motivation?
No. The motivation this winter was fun. The small bump globe is already a bonus, and a large globe would be a bonus bonus. But I don't think about it. I remain in the same state of mind as at the start of the season.
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