Fabrice Becker (born June 28, 1971 ) is a former French freestyle skier . He specialized in the no longer performed discipline ballet (acro) . In this discipline he won the Olympic demonstration competition in 1992 and was world champion in 1993 and 1997 respectively. In addition, he won the overall freestyle World Cup as well as three discipline ratings and 21 individual competitions.
Fabrice Becker comes from La Plagne and started for the local ski club during his career.
Becker made his debut in the Freestyle Skiing World Cup in La Clusaz in February 1989 and finished 22nd. At the end of his second season, he came in fourth place for the first time near the podium. His first two placings on the podium came in the winter of 1990/91, and at the World Championships in Lake Placid he finished seventh. The breakthrough came a year later. After his first two World Cup victories, he went to the demonstration competition as part of the Olympic Games in Albertville as a favorite and won the gold medal ahead of Rune Kristiansen . While he had to admit defeat to the Norwegian series winner in the World Cup discipline in the following two years, he defeated him at the World Championships in Zauchensee and won his first world title.
In 1993/94 Becker won the discipline ranking for the first time with five wins this season, but lost both the ranking and the world championship title to Kristiansen in the following season. From December 1994 he started in aerials (jumping) in addition to ballet, a 14th place (Piancavallo 1997) remained the best result of his career. In 1997 he won his second gold medal at the World Championships in Japan , in 1996/97 and 1997/98 again the ballet discipline in the World Cup. The planned participation in the Olympic Games in Nagano failed because he did not do enough jumping. In his last season, thanks to the additional points from jumping, he was the first and only ballet specialist to win the overall freestyle World Cup.
Further career
Fabrice Becker graduated from the Jean Moulin Summer School in Albertville between 1989 and 1991 and studied marketing technology at the University of Savoy in Annecy until 1994 . In addition to his skiing career, he was also active as a musician and released his debut album with the alternative rock band Mad Fox in the summer of 1997 . After he turned completely to freestyle jumping in 1998, he first trained the French youngsters and the Norwegian champion Hilde Lid. In the winter of 1999/00 he went on an advertising tour as a ski acrobat with Budweiser and was discovered by the Canadian Cirque du Soleil . Becker gave up his life in the Alps and emigrated to Montréal in March 2000 to work for the circus as a talent scout for acrobats. After various other tasks, he has been the creative director since 2015 .
France
