Sandrine and Alexis Simond saw their lives turned upside down on April 24, 2025. Their daughter Margot was training ahead of Red Bull Alpine Park, an event sponsored by the brand which promised spectacle and thrills. On this course, dotted with modules inspired by freestyle skiing, a tunnel was located at the exit of a jump. It was in this tunnel that Margot lost her life. Ten months after the tragedy, the reasons for his accident remain unclear. Is it Margot’s fault or that of the organizers?
If the question arises, it is because several people assured that she would have arrived too quickly at the level of the tunnel (which was not protected by a mattress or nets). For Sandrine Simond, “this module, a jump with a tunnel behind it, was madness”. “The auditions are contradictory,” she explains in an interview with L’Équipe published this Friday. Whether she makes a mistake on the edge, whether she has too much speed, whether there is a collision, whether there is an imbalance on the bump, behind if it doesn’t go through, it’s a cutthroat, it’s a mousetrap. The risk was unacceptable. And yet, it was true. » And Margot’s mother added that she wanted “everything to be stripped of its skin”. “We have faith in justice, that it does its duty, that it is public, that there is a trial,” she assures.
“It’s a general escape, a form of cowardice”
The skier’s parents also denounce an omerta. “As soon as the accident happened, everyone went to the shelters. The overall message was that there was no responsibility whatsoever for anyone. After the condolences, it was it’s not our fault “, says Margot’s father, Alexis, in the same interview with L’Équipe. An impression shared by his wife, who believes that “from the evening of the accident, the young people who had participated in the event were instructed not to speak. There is only Red Bull (sponsor them) who had to speak. The floor was locked right away. »
A silence that has lasted over time. Clément Noël, who co-organized the event and who promoted it on social networks, did not want to react to this affair. Until the Milan-Cortina Winter Games where, interviewed by L’Équipe, he declared: “The death of Margot was an absolutely terrible ordeal to live through. (…) The route and the safety protocol had been thought out by professionals, under normal speed conditions, the modules did not present any danger. (…) This event did not seek to push the limits of our sport. »
Faced with all these reactions, Alexis Simond says he wants to “restore dignity to my daughter. You imagine what we have been through and what we are going to go through, the loss, the sadness, the grief, the anger. And it’s a general escape, a form of cowardice, because that’s what it’s about. »
