Rising French freestyle star Romain Allemand: “I dream of making a living from snowboarding”
In an interview with Olympics.com, the French teen from La Plagne spoke about his admiration for the legendary snowboarder Shaun White, why happiness is key and the Olympic hopes driving him forward.
Snowboard
French snowboard freestyle rider Romain Allemand is quite used to scaling great heights.
Twisting and contorting his body and board round and round in the air, the 16-year-old from La Plagne looks every bit at ease as he executes his vision in the skies.
Just like those soaring movements, the young snowboarder’s career trajectory appears to be mirroring the same trajectory.
Up and up.
But while things are building quickly for the teen, who, in this year alone has marked several key objectives including winning gold in Big Air at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Friuli Venezia Giulia and being selected for France’s snowboard freestyle 2023/24 World Cup team, he is not letting himself get carried away.
“I don’t get worked up,” Allemand told Olympics.com in an interview back in January outlining his best qualities. “I think I'm always trying to be grounded. And I try not to sulk but instead please people and bring joy.”
Joy - that overriding feeling of freedom, love and happiness that Allemand wants to hand to others is something he says he found almost straight away when he first started snowboarding at the age of five.
He uncovered in it an obsession to do tricks and soar through the air; to see and feel the weight of pressure of competition. “All of this has always fascinated me,” he explains.
Romain Allemand (centre) on the podium after claiming the Big Air event during the 2023 EYOF.
'There's no point in being negative'
His compulsion to explore and push his limits from a young age was rewarded early and quickly as he entered local competitions. For Allemand, each win was a sign that he was on the right path.
“I understood that I was somewhat made for this sport when I started to achieve results in small competitions and that I started to tour more and more and to develop more and more my desire to do snowboarding to evolve and better things followed.”
But even as he developed, Allemand never lost sight of the joy of snowboarding. And staying true to that feeling even now is something the Frenchman acknowledges as still being very important to him.
Memories of the growing pains he went through during an early phase are a constant reminder that being happy in what he does is paramount to him delivering his best.
“When I first started, there was a point when I couldn't snowboard and I was always in a bad mood,” the French teen explains.
“And, when I'm in a bad mood, I can't do what I love, like snowboarding. If I'm sad, I'll fall or do bad things, whereas as soon as I'm happy, I manage to do them and do what I love by being my best performance.
“There's no point in being negative.”
Romain Allemand: "I always try to do sports"
Given his exciting future ahead, it’s no surprise that Allemand thinks big when it comes to his sporting idols.
There is one person the Frenchman admires above all in terms of legacy: superstar snowboarder Shaun White.
“Because he’s a legend,” Allemand says decisively, describing why he looks up to the three-time Olympic champion, pointing to White’s perfect 100 scores in halfpipe and his impressive skateboarding career as evidence. “He’s done everything; he was the best.”
Just like White, who straddled the worlds of winter and summer, Allemand similarly has a sporting passion away from the mountains. In between seasons, the French snowboarder kitesurfs near his home on the Cote d’Azur.
“My father also started kitesurfing, and so he taught me. I started doing it more and more until I got a little strong and started competing,” Allemand says, explaining how he got into the watersport.
“And then kite is a bit like snowboarding. It's with a board, we do tricks in the air and the goal is to score points with friends. It's a bit the same and the feeling of flying is magnificent.”
Passing the summer months with friends in the water, sometimes even travelling further afield to Spain to try out new places, speaks to Allemand’s love for movement. More generally, he explains, sitting still is not ever an option. Being active and trying new things whenever he has a spare moment is one of the things he relishes most.
“When I have free time, whether in the mountains or at the sea, I always try to do sports. I find it difficult to stay at home and do nothing on my sofa. So really, I always try to do sports or move around, because otherwise, I get too bored.”
French snowboarder Romain Allemand hopes to make it to Gangwon 2024 before qualifying for Milano Cortina 2024
Olympic dreams of the future
With plans this season only to compete in the European legs of the World Cup so that he can devote himself to training, it’s clear Allemand is committed to his future aspirations.
For now, those include getting selected for the Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024 before working to qualify for the next Olympic Winter Games in Milano Cortina 2026.
“When I watch the Olympic Games, the World Cups and all that already, it makes me want it,” Allemand says. “There's a huge diversity in snowboarding in terms of style and level. It's great."
Making those great contests is all part of a bigger and even more simple vision: to do what he loves every day.
“I dream of making a living from snowboarding, from my passion and to continue like that, to always snowboard, to travel. That's kind of my dream.”