How legends are made

Meet Corentin Desbois: 38 years old and riding snowscoot in the South of France in a place called Pra Loup, one of the biggest ski resorts of France. Corentin was born in Belgium and spent his youth there with his parents and two brothers. His fascination for extreme sports arose at a very young age, so he became a fanatical BMX rider. One day, he discovered a picture of a snowscoot in a BMX magazine. It was on that day that a boy lost his heart. “I went straight up to my parents to tell them I needed to ride this thing.” From then on, his parents rented a snowscoot for him every winter. At the age of just 13, had fallen head over heels with what soon became his biggest passion: riding the snowscoot.  

In 2001, Corentin and his family moved to France. They permanently moved into the house that had been their holiday home until then. To Corentin’s joy, they moved to winter sport paradise where he could ride snowscoot from dusk till dawn.  

Eventually, Corentin started looking for some mates to share his passion with. In 2003 he joined the snowscoot team in Pra Loup. “It was the only real snowscoot team with sponsors, since snowscoot is still a very small and unknown sport.” In 2004, Corentin took part in his very first snowscoot competition: the Pra Loup World Championships. From then on, he rode dozens of competitions every year, for seven years long. In 2011 he competed in a competition called Speed Masters for the first time and promptly set the snowscoot record at 151,490 km/h.  

Corentin studied mechanics for four years to become a mechanical engineer. This led to his first job, which (of course) was creating snowscoots. At the age of just 23, he founded his own brand: Dr. Jack. Under this name he started making boards, developing frames and creating snowscoots. Unfortunately, the market for this was too small, so he had to find something else to make a living. That’s when he opened his first grow shop. What followed were six years of hard work, without any snowscoot competitions. But there was good news too: he got to know Plagron! So, when Corentin made his comeback in 2017, they were there to back him up. And did he come back with a bang…the world speed record for snowscoot was still on his name on that time, and of course he improved it straight away. That’s how legends are made! 

But then… bad luck kicked in when in 2019 the weather and slope conditions were too bad for the Speed Masters event to take place. In 2020 and 2021 COVID-19 ruined the fun. On top of that, in 2020 Corentin broke his elbow during a training while preparing for Speed Masters. Since Plagron has got your back during the good AND the bad, of course they kept empowering Corentin during the last three rough years. But they are more than ready to race again. Fingers crossed! 

Also, the last time Corentin set a record by racing downhill was in 2019 in Vars. The record he set that day was 178.430 km/h. Will he set the world record for all disciplines this year?

Additional info: World records can only be set at special events that are called Speed Masters. In the ski federation speeds above 200 km/h must be in a special competition form. All other competitions can only happen below 200 km/h. The first time Corentin set a world record was in 2011 in Verbier, Switzerland. Since during the championships in Verbier, large rocks were coming down even during the competition, this was the last years championships were held here. From that year on, all world championships were held in Vars. Vars has the most safe and efficient slopes of the world.  

Disciplines that take part in the Speed Masters competition: ski, monoski, snowboard, telemark, mountain bike and snowscoot.