It couldn't be more contradictory: Winters are getting shorter and shorter, summers longer and longer, and the ski market is shrinking and shrinking, and yet new ski builders and entrepreneurs keep finding themselves willing to take the risk of launching their own new ski brand. In Disentis, Grisons, the new ski brand "Anavon" was launched in spring 2018 and is now starting its first winter. I met the people behind it and got to know Anavon a little better.
by Rolf Fleckenstein
Anavon means "forward" in Romansh. Especially from the point of view of the Romansh-speaking ski developer Simon Jacomet, who has found a new task at the newly founded Anavon Ski AG after leaving the Zai brand, the name sounds like a personal call and describes the dawn of a new era. Simon Jacomet, a native of Disentis, will be known primarily to insiders from the ski industry: The artist and ski builder, who has been living out his creativity in the ski business for decades, be it earlier with the Salomon brand or be it later (from 2003 to 2017) with the Zai brand he created, is probably one of the most creative and innovative ski designers of today. His ski creations often enough push the limits of what is possible, and he is all too happy to try to push those limits. Whether he creates a ski with a ski core made of stone, whether he creates a ski with a hole in the middle of the ski, whether he develops skis with unusual shapes, he makes it possible for his original ski concepts to work both on the slopes and in powder snow. His ideas are often enough crazy and inimitably unique. It is clear that a person like Simon Jacomet, who has dedicated half a life to his artistic ski creations, may not give up ski building from one day to the next.
As the creator of the Zai brand, he had had no joy in recent years, watching the brand and the company go downhill. Even though he could only exert a limited influence on this - after all, the ski manufacturer was "only" responsible for the product and not for the marketing or the finances of the company - it still bothers him today, as he revealed to me in a personal conversation, that Zai AG had never managed to become profitable and realize business success despite great ski products. The closure of the factory in Disentis in March 2018 was...
the following sections still follow:
- The founders or how the team of three is created
- The makers of Anavon complement each other well
- The future and the goals of Anavon
- And again a unique ski concept
- The assessment of Anavon
The picture-rich article is included in the magazine issue and covers 6 full pages without advertising.
Do you want to read the whole article, then order the issue "Sportguide Winter, 2/2018" with the following form or just send an email to [email protected].
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