PROFESSIONAL SKIER | THE NETHERLANDS | @LAURA_BERGHUIS

Meet the exciting young talent; Laura Berghuis. Laura is a 17-year old Dutch Mogul Skier who has been hitting the slopes since she was 4 years old. Mogul skiing is a right of passage for the Berghuis family, Laura has followed in the footsteps of her mother and older sister Janneke. With her first podium finish in the European Cup this past season and a place in the upcoming junior world championships, we cannot wait to see what she will achieve.

We are blessed to have such a promising young athlete as a Cortazu ambassador- so without further ado, let's get to know her and ask her some questions about herself, her skiing and why she's working with Cortazu!

Considering i’m from The Netherlands, there’s not a lot of skiing options here besides training in the indoor halls. So if you want to ski on real snow and train on a real mogul course, there’s a lot of travelling involved. The fact that I get to travel to all these amazing places and do what I love everyday all-together is something I think is one of the most amazing things about this sport. To see all the countries & cultures and venture all the different nature scenes is something I’m so grateful for.

Besides the travelling I also love the vibe around the sport. Most of the time with high-level sports everyone is a bit uptight and doing their own thing, but not with mogul skiing. For instance when we lost our luggage while travelling everyone pitched in so we were able to ski the day after with all the extra stuff everyone else brought. Even though it’s all different teams, it feels like you’re travelling with one big friend group.

Gold at the Olympic Games. That’s the ultimate goal. But one that’s a bit closer that I’ve always had is to ski the olympics together with my sister Janneke. Just the experience alone. She is my best friend and we’ve grown up together and progressed in the level of skiing together as well and I think it’s so cool we get to share these moments together. The time we skied Europe cup together was so much fun and I can’t wait until we get to compete together again in World Cup. But the olympics is just such a special experience that we could have together that nothing comes close. 

Hmmm there are so many amazing memories I have from skiing so this one is tough! But I’ll have to say the moment I realised I got podium at the Europe cup in jÿvaskÿla, Finland. I got 4^th in the qualifications so in the finals there were only 3 more girls to go after me. After my run I was scanning the scores like crazy and saw that I was still first and that there were only 2 more girls to go. It was sure I got podium. I ended up third place and the feeling I got when I realised this, was something I’ve never felt before. It just didn’t feel real.

Well first off, Cortazu feels like one big happy ski family, and I love that! 

I also really like the fact that it’s a Dutch brand and we get the opportunity to grow together. Besides that, the items are amazing. One competition season and normally my gear would absorb all the water whenever it rains or snows, but not this year! I travelled all over Europe and had some bad weather days (believe me, it was bad) but the gear never failed me and I stayed dry all season.