By Michael Mastarciyan
For most people, telling them they’ve got their “head in the clouds” is an insult - not for Dominique Gisin though – for the 26-year-old Swiss speed star it’s a downright compliment.
Gisin, you see, loves to fly - both on and off the slopes.
In fact, when Gisin is not swooping down alpine pistes on the World Cup circuit, she’s making tracks in the skies flying planes.“Last September I passed the theoretical exam and this June I passed the practical test so I just got my pilot’s license and I’m really happy about that! I started flying when I was seventeen. A friend got me into it while I was injured and I was actually flying before I ever even drove a car, it’s crazy! I love to fly, being in the air, the three dimensions, the speed, it’s definitely one of the best experiences in the world,” Gisin says.
Gisin’s most recent flight experiences have been, in her own words, “indescribable and unforgettable” - a flight in a fighter jet with the Breitling Jet Team (http://vimeo.com/25880405), a ride on vintage Lockheed Constellation “Connie” and a heart stopping experience as a “wing walker” flying through the air strapped on the wing of a plane.
“They put a chair on the upper wing of an old school double-decker bi-plane and they strap you in and you fly around sitting there with goggles and a flight suit! It was crazy, your skin is flapping around and you feel the air on your arms and body and it’s really loud. You fly at like 130 kph so it’s pretty similar to skiing but you can’t get into a tuck position so you feel everything, it’s just crazy and really loud. The whole time I was on the wing I was saying, ‘this is not happening, this is not happening!’”While Gisin hasn’t reached Top Gun status in the aeronautical arena just yet, she is nevertheless one of the premier Top Guns on the White Circus with three victories, one second place, two thirds and 15 other top-10 finishes in the speed events.
There is however, more to Gisin than ski racing and airplanes. Here are 5 more things you should know about the high flyer from the Swiss Alps….
1. Dominique hates everything over 25 Celsius!
“I think that’s the most important thing you have to know about me - I get really mad when it’s too hot, like when it’s over 25 Celsius, I can’t stand it, my body’s not made for it. I get angry, I just don’t like it too hot. When I sweat all the time, I can’t stand it. The worst is when my coaches make me train in summer in hot places like Sardinia where we were recently for training. One day it was 30 Celsius and we had to do a triathlon, I got so mad at my coach! I hate running when it’s 30 degrees, I can run two hours when it’s 20 degrees, but five minutes in 30 degrees is already too much. I could never go on vacation to a place where it’s really hot. I don’t have a lot of energy in the heat and it makes me feel bad. If I go on a beach vacation, I would rather it be in the North Sea rather than the Caribbean. If there’s water and it’s under 20 degrees I’m okay with that, that’s why in summer when I’m in Switzerland I love going to lakes like Thunersee where the water is like 20-22 degrees maximum so you always cool down.”
2. Dominique is a “winter freak” and loves polar bears!
“You know I’m a winter freak. When I was little I would always jump out and make a snow man out of dirt probably when the first snow would fall. It would drive my Mom crazy, she’d take out all my winter gear and I go out, it was THE thing for me! I’ve always loved winter as long as I can think back. When I was a kid, I’d wait for winter all year long. Even now when I see snow it makes me happy. When I can go up into the mountains into the snow during summer it makes me happy. My love of winter even affects a snack food I like called Appenzeller Biberli - they’re made with honey and cinnamon, they’re like little round cakes and they’re pretty healthy, my nutrition coach always says, “goooood!” when I’m eating one. They’re round with traditional paintings on the packaging. In summer they have summer paintings and in winter they have winter paintings, and I always joke around and say I only buy them when they have the winter paintings on them. So when I was invited onto a Swiss TV show, they asked the company that makes them to get me some “winter” Appenzellers in the summer, so the company sent me a basket of them with winter packaging in the summer!”
“I also love polar bears. I’ve always been a fan of bears and then of course because I love the cold I’ve always loved polar bears. So it was natural that I loved the character of Iorek, the king of the Ice Bears in The Golden Compass book! I don’t know, I think I always saw myself as a polar bear, somehow I feel like their close friends, hahaha! Of course I’ve seen them in zoos, but I’d love to go to the arctic to see polar bears in the wild. I think they are fascinating animals and I think they’re the most beautiful animal in the world. Maybe I identify with them because when you are in Lake Louise racing you have to be a polar bear to survive and get down the race course in -30 Celsius, hahaha!”
3. Dominique is a fan of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath but she the group she loves the most is Wolfmother!
“Wolfmother is something that came to me through skiing. I heard one of their songs, “Mind’s Eye,” in a popular ski movie trailer about five years ago and then I heard the whole song and I loved it. So I bought all their CDs, and went to all the Wolfmother gigs I could go to in Switzerland. All my friends love them, my brother is a huge fan, I love the band, it’s just great music. “Mind’s Eye” is the song I use for motivation before my races, and another song - “Dimension” is the song I always wake up to the morning of races, I just love it, I love to drive in my car listening to Wolfmother, I think it’s cool. I’ve seen them three times so far. They’re so much better live, it’s such a great show, the guys are so crazy.”“ Of course I also listen to Led Zeppelin, they are classic rock, for me they are one of the best bands and I love their music. I also love Black Sabbath, but they are almost too heavy. I wouldn’t be able to listen to them on a daily basis, but I do like to from time to time.”
4. Dominique is a huge Lord of The Rings fan and can write in J.R.R Tolkien’s fictional Tengwar alphabet script and can also speak Sindarin, one of the languages of the Elves!
“I can only speak a little bit of Sindarin, really only a few phrases, but I can really write in Tengwar. I used to write everything in Tengwar when I was younger, like in high school all my diaries and everything was written in Tengwar. It saved my hand writing though, I used to write really poorly and nowadays because of Tengwar it’s legible and really okay.”“My fascination with The Lord of The Rings was more a “book thing” than a “movie thing.” When I was young I’d read like 60 books a year, I was an addict. I used to read books under the table in school all the time. I used to read books at home during breakfast, walking to school, walking back from school, in school at the lunch table, in the library, everywhere! I never took out the small books from the library, small books I’d finish in two hours. I always took the books that were the thickest, books that were 500-600 pages long and those books were always the fantasy books. So I’ve always loved fantasy, and my favorite book is The Golden Compass and of course if you read fantasy you have to read The Lord of The Rings because it’ s the most influential fantasy book ever written. I read it when I was 11 or 12 in German and later on I read it in English, which wasn’t easy. Then I started to learn to write in Tengwar, I just thought it was fun. Then I saw the movies, then I fell in love with Orlando Bloom, hahaha!”“I loved all the Lord of The Rings films because they were done with so much heart. I loved that they filmed them in real, natural settings instead of computer generated backgrounds. I also think they did a great job with the characters like with Liv Tyler and Orlando Bloom, and Viggo Mortensen, Sir Ian McKellan and Elijah Wood of course, I just though the cast was perfect. I think the thing that made the movies really good was the amount of heart they put into the details. Every little small thing was done perfectly. On the flipside, in the movie version of The Golden Compass, the movie is horrible because they used too much computer generated backgrounds. It just looked really fake and it would have been much easier to make than The Lord of the Rings because The Golden Compass is set in Oxford and they could have shot it there with all the charm of Oxford. The things that make the book so charming weren’t there and I was really disappointed by that movie.
5. Dominique loves postage stamps!
“My Dad is a stamp collector. He’s crazy about it and always checks the letters we are about to throw away for stamps. When we were little we always helped him on rainy Sundays to take stamps off letters and put them in his albums and I had my own stamp album too. It was a really great social activity in our home when I was young. And now, it’s influenced me a lot because when I mail letters now, I won’t just put an ordinary stamp on them. I don’t collect stamps, but I get a monthly news letter from the Swiss Post that advertises special stamps and I always order nice ones that I use when I send letters out. When I get fan mail from kids I always put stamps on that kids would like. For example they made a stamp with images of Lars, from The Little Polar Bear books on it so I ordered it and use it for letters to kids. I always like to have nice stamps and it’s important to me for my letters to look nice when they get posted, hahaha!”
All below photos by Dominique Pittet
Dominique canoeing and playing volleyball in Sardignia in June
Dominique stand up paddling in Bernese Oberland in July
