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Published October 16, 2026 02:07PM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Plenty of skiers are gear-obsessed, but Marcel Hirscher is in a league of his own. Over the course of his 15-year racing career, the legendary Austrian skier and founder of VAN DEER-Red Bull Sports would drive his coaches and teammates crazy with constant chatter about tech specs and modifications. Maybe not the guy you want to challenge in gear trivia, but definitely the guy you want designing your skis.<\/p>\n
Which is why he\u2019s the first person to convince Red Bull to co-own a ski brand.<\/p>\nSkier and VAN DEER-Red Bull Sports founder Marcel Hirscher.<\/span> (Photo: Kleinmond-Georg Lindacher)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBorn in Salzburg and raised in the Austrian Alps, Hischer made his World Cup debut in March 2007 and found himself catapulted into the limelight. In 2008, he bagged his first World Cup podium, and in 2009, his first win. Over the next 10 years, he became the winningest Austrian ski racer of all time, turning heads with masterful racing strategy and unparalleled technique. Credit those skills to his uncompromising perfectionism, a characteristic that drove him to 67 World Cup wins, two Olympic gold medals, and eight consecutive overall World Cup titles. And when he retired from ski racing in 2019, it\u2019s what drove him to start manufacturing his own skis.<\/p>\n
Hirscher has always been a tinkerer by nature\u2014maddeningly meticulous and chronically detail-oriented. Red Bull already knew that after a decade of working with him as a sponsor and supporter. So, when Hirscher said he was launching his own company in 2021, their ears perked up.<\/p>\nVAN DEER-Red Bull Sports skis are designed for everything from groomers to deep powder.<\/span> (Photo: Kleinmond-Georg Lindacher)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHischer called his brand VAN DEER, a name that plays up his half-Dutch heritage and winks at the fact that hirsch<\/i> is German for \u201cdeer.\u201d The goal was to give the brand some racing pedigree without directly naming it after a pro. After all, Hirscher never set out to make skis just for the elite.<\/p>\n
Hirscher\u2019s overarching philosophy is that all skiers are equal. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re a bunny-hill newbie, a weekend warrior, or a champion racer. Everyone can benefit from a ski that fits, and everyone can access the sublime sense of flow and rhythm that only skiing can offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing feels quite like a perfectly carved turn,\u201d Hirscher says. \u201cWhen a ski truly fits its skier, you feel it through a certain naturalness of movement.\u201d He\u2019s honed his sensitivity to that feeling through decades of racing. Now, he\u2019s applying that fine-tuned sensibility to ski design.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a ski racer, skiing is a constant search for hundredths of a second, where even a tiny change in edge angle or flex can make a huge difference,\u201d says Hirscher. \u201cThe real challenge is transferring that knowledge from the racecourse to everyday skiers in a way that makes them better.\u201d That process requires converting raw data and physics into the unquantifiable feeling of human movement. That\u2019s the alchemy Hirscher lives for.<\/p>\nVAN DEER-Red Bull Sports skis are designed and engineered in Austria.<\/span> (Photo: Andreas Putz)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHe spent the first months of his new project immersed in the all-consuming process of design. Then Red Bull stopped by. After such a longstanding partnership, maybe it\u2019s no wonder that Hirscher and Red Bull had developed a strikingly similar vision for the future of alpine skiing. Regardless, a collab was an easy yes. Red Bull got a peek at what Hirscher was doing, liked what they saw, and came on as a partner in 2022. The result: VAN DEER-Red Bull Sports.<\/p>\n
Since then, the Alps-based brand has become a beacon of Austrian heritage. The skis are sleek, classic, and no-nonsense. Their craftsmanship is decidedly traditional, but the high-tech materials and rigorous testing are as modern as it gets. The skis get put through their paces on mountains all over the world\u2014including on World Cup courses where they\u2019ve already earned gold medals and dozens of podium finishes. Hirscher even wore them himself when he returned to racing for the 2024\/25 season.<\/p>\nVAN DEER-Red Bull Sports\u2019 mission is to make elite skiing accessible to everyone.<\/span> (Photo: Andreas Putz)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBetter yet, the athletes who ride those skis deliver their feedback to VAN DEER-Red Bull Sports, a tight-knit partnership that continues to drive the pace of innovation. Two of those skis\u2014the FREERIDE SERIES, which is exactly what it sounds like, and the H-POWER SERIES, which is designed for all-day skiing in any terrain\u2014bring Hirscher\u2019s profound knowledge and racing heritage to skiers across a wide range of skill levels. The new launches are also designed to complement the brand\u2019s four existing lines: the PRO SERIES, RACE SERIES, JUNIOR PRO SERIES, and TOURING SERIES.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mission is to make the feeling I have while skiing accessible to others,\u201d Hirscher says. \u201cWith us, there is no racing privilege when it comes to material quality\u2014we build skis with World Cup quality, adapted for free skiing.\u201d<\/p>\nVAN DEER-Red Bull Sports has several different lines for all types of skiing.<\/span>\u00a0(Photo: Kleinmond-Georg Lindacher)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBecause while World Cup racing will always have a special place in Hirscher\u2019s heart, his primary mission is to help up-and-coming skiers accelerate their mastery of the sport he loves. The goal isn\u2019t only to help that new generation win more medals. It\u2019s to help them fall in love with skiing\u2014with each drop, each pole-plant, each turn\u2014exactly in the same way he did.<\/p>\n
At VAN DEER-Red Bull Sports<\/a>, founded in the Austrian Alps by ski legend Marcel Hirscher, we do things differently. We believe in the power of \u201cnew\u201d and a no-compromise approach to skiing and equipment. Together with\u00a0 Red Bull, we combine racing\u00a0 expertise with innovation to create world-class skis for a new generation.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull teamed up with an Austrian racing legend to manufacture skis, and it\u2019s the mashup we\u2019ve all been waiting for VAN DEER-Red Bull Sports skis. (Photo: Kleinmond-Georg Lindacher) Published October 16, 2026 02:07PM Plenty of skiers are gear-obsessed, but Marcel Hirscher is in a league of his own. Over the course of his 15-year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wild-living"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}