In the high-altitude arenas where snow becomes canvas and the human body turns into a brushstroke of velocity and defiance, a certain kind of magic can happen. A fleeting, weightless second where physics, artistry, and sheer nerve collide into something unforgettable. At this year’s Swatch Nines event, that elusive magic was captured vividly — and at the center of it all was Kim Gubser, the Swiss freestyle skier whose presence has become synonymous with the new frontier of winter sports creativity.

Swatch Nines, long heralded as one of the most progressive and visually spectacular gatherings in action sports, is not a competition in the traditional sense. There are no gold medals, no podiums, no strict judging criteria. Instead, it is a playground for progression, a curated space where skiers and snowboarders are given free rein to explore what is possible when you remove the fear of failure and replace it with the invitation to send.

In the 2025 edition, under a glacial sun and towering mega-features carved like sculptures into the mountain’s face, Kim Gubser delivered one of the event’s purest moments — a breathtaking sequence captured in CORE SHOTS, the ongoing series dedicated to documenting the raw, unfiltered energy of Swatch Nines.

This was not just another trick.

It was a manifesto in mid-air.

The Evolution of Swatch Nines: A Culture of Creative Liberation

To understand the weight of Gubser’s moment, one must first appreciate the unique alchemy of Swatch Nines itself. Born over a decade ago as a rebellion against the stagnation of traditional competition formats, Swatch Nines eschews rigidity for a spirit of limitless possibility.

Each year, the crew behind the event collaborates with athletes to design course features that seem plucked from dream journals — surreal combinations of jumps, spines, quarter pipes, and rails that dare participants to imagine beyond the boundaries of established trick lists.

Here, there are no heats, no finals, no rankings. Just riders, cameras, and a meticulously sculpted canvas of snow and ice, all conspiring to ask a single question:

What if you could dream something new, and land it?

Kim Gubser: The Stylist with Firepower

Among the roster of elite talent assembled for Swatch Nines 2025, Kim Gubser emerged as a standout not merely because of technical skill — though he has that in abundance — but because of his stylistic purity. In a sport increasingly dominated by dizzying spin counts and complexity, Gubser’s riding reminds spectators of something deeper: that how you do something can be as important as what you do.

At just 24 years old, Gubser has already built a reputation for his signature fluidity, his uncanny ability to make even the most aggressive tricks look effortless. A native of Switzerland’s snow-drenched Graubünden region, he grew up with the mountains etched into his DNA. Early success in slopestyle and big air competitions catapulted him onto the global stage, but it’s in settings like Swatch Nines — liberated from judging sheets and point tallies — that his style truly unfurls.

Watching Gubser ride is watching confidence without arrogance, creativity without chaos.

The CORE SHOT Moment: Suspended Between Earth and Sky

The particular moment captured in CORE SHOTS this year could have been scripted by a poet: a massive gap jump, a clean takeoff into an exquisitely executed switch bio 1260 mute grab, the axis of rotation tilted just enough to blur the line between spin and glide.

Midway through the air, Gubser’s posture crystallized into something almost surreal — knees tucked, body coiled, hand locking the mute grab in a textbook-perfect silhouette, all while his head remained eerily calm, almost meditative, surveying the world spinning slowly around him.

In the playback, you can hear it: the collective inhale of the onlookers, the fractional silence that only accompanies feats on the edge of what the human body should be capable of.

And then, the landing — seamless, the tails of his skis kissing the transition like brush strokes on a canvas.

No arm flaps. No overcorrections.

Just a rider and a mountain, briefly, completely, in harmony.

Why It Mattered: Beyond the Trick

While a switch bio 1260 is, on paper, an elite-level trick, what made Gubser’s moment resonate wasn’t the technical data—it was the emotion embedded within the execution.

In an era when progression can sometimes veer into the mechanical, when every new rotation feels incrementally squeezed from an arms race of athletic escalation, Gubser’s send was a reminder that beauty still matters. That style is not an afterthought, but a core element of progression itself.

In that sense, Gubser was not just adding a tick to his trick inventory.

He was adding a line to the living poetry of skiing itself.

The Culture of CORE SHOTS: Documenting the Indescribable

CORE SHOTS — the visual chronicle of Swatch Nines’ most jaw-dropping moments — operates on a simple premise: capture athletes at the height of their expressive powers, without artificial staging, without manufactured drama.

The project seeks not just to document tricks, but to translate the spirit behind them: the wind slicing past a skier’s face mid-rotation, the crunch of landing gear as edges carve fresh snow, the guttural yell of celebration (or catharsis) after a stomped landing.

Gubser’s feature this year is emblematic of what CORE SHOTS strives to bottle: not the trick alone, but the feeling behind it.

The moment when ambition meets execution.

The split second where risk converts into flight.

The quiet, invisible architecture of years of practice finally manifesting in a clean, elegant arc through space.

The Future of Freeskiing: Where Style and Innovation Meet

Kim Gubser’s performance at Swatch Nines 2025 is more than a personal triumph. It points toward a critical evolution in the sport itself: a rebalancing act where innovation is measured not only by technical escalation but by expressive originality.

Freeskiing is entering an era where athletes who can weave technical mastery with artistic sensibility will define the culture. Where how you trick matters as much as what you trick. Where progression doesn’t have to mean abandoning soul for spectacle.

Gubser is already part of this vanguard — an athlete who understands that to truly push a sport forward, you must not only expand its limits but also deepen its emotional resonance.

In doing so, he honors the roots of skiing as expression, even as he leaps fearlessly into its future as evolution.

Flow

As the snow settles once again across the Swatch Nines site and the CORE SHOTS footage ricochets across social media, Kim Gubser’s flight lingers in the imagination.

It stands as a reminder that true greatness is not always measured by numbers or scores, but by moments.

By the purity of a send.

 

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