Faction announced at ISPO, Munich in February that they have formed a partnership with Candide Thovex, one of the most talented and successful skiers to come out of France since Jean Claude Killy.

Candide, who won the Freeride World Tour in 2010 with a 1st place finish in Chamonix, has been in dozens of films including Candide Kamera, Candide Kamera 2 and Mind The Gap. Add this to three X-Games gold medals, eight freeride competition medals including Red Bull’s Linecatcher, as well as a gold medal in the Big Air at The Gravity Games, and it seems Faction have pulled off a master-stroke by securing such a name to their ranks.

Candide and Faction have wasted little time in rolling out a collection of his signature skis for next season, exclusively unveiled at this year’s ISPO event in Munich.

The Ski

The Candide 3.0 – Freeride Twin, is a hybrid of the current 3 Zero, with a restructured design that has improved feedback and stability on what is already one of the best pairs of freeriding skis on the market. Not only that, but the Candide 3.0 will be almost an entire kilogram lighter than this season’s model!

A Park and Pipe based ski and a kids all mountain ski are the other sets of skis to complete the collection labelled the Candide 1.0 and Candide 0.5 respectively. These have similarly been redesigned by Candide and manufactured with the expertise of Faction so that Candide’s vision of the future of park and freeride skiing can be brought to the consumer for the 12/13 season.

Candide is be pleased with how this collaboration has flourished so far, commenting at ISPO, ‘We picked out key features we wanted to concentrate on, namely performance and environmental impact, without allowing one to compromise the other. We are excited to have produced our first range, which we will continue to grow over the coming years, endeavoring to lead the field in performance and ecological advancements.’

It is clear to see why Faction are one of the leading manufactures in responsible ski design; the cores of the skis for the Candide range are made with recycled PET, whilst the introduction of natural flax fibre into the construction and the use of water-based inks have helped to create less waste. This is fantastic to see from a organisation involved with a sport that is bearing the brunt of climate change.

That initial spark has never wavered in its intensity – we still ski over 100 days a year, developing and testing new products and ideas to make skiers lives better.

Faction’s unmatched understanding and commitment to skiing looks set to produce yet another successful season with skis, pushing the limits of available technology for the good of the rider as well as the planet.

For more information, head to factionskis.com.