2019 Year in Review: Top Stories in Nordic + Telemark Instruction

Happy holidays! We hope you are making plans to enjoy this special time of year with your fellow instructors, students, and all of your family and friends.

In celebration of an incredibly impactful 2019 for PSIA-AASI members, we are counting down the top stories in snowsports instruction, starting yesterday with a look at adaptive instruction. Today, we celebrate the top stories in cross country and telemark instruction.

The Cross Country Highlight Reel

PSIA Nordic Team Coach David Lawrence said, “The nordic team’s continued evolution has honored the development of cross country skiing and telemark skiing as two separate disciplines. With the separation of the disciplines, telemark and cross country enjoy many benefits: greater resource allocation, discipline-specific training, clearer membership messaging, and more industry relevancy. Both telemark and cross country have been building and refining discipline-specific fundamentals, learning outcomes, performance guides, and e-learning courses. An additional accomplishment, Telemark and Cross Country National Academies, and the XC team has brought an event to a different division each year during our tenure.”

The Telemark Highlight Reel

2020-2024 Telemark Team Coach Gregory Dixon said, “The biggest highlight for this term was our trip to Interski in Pamporovo, Bulgaria. The telemark discipline had a strong showing, with 56 representatives from 14 different countries. There were some amazing and thought-provoking presentations and the best telemark skiing we’ve seen at any event. In addition, we had two super-successful Telemark Academies at Big Sky, in 2018 and 2019. Big Sky provided our membership some beautiful terrain and conditions.”

Interski 2019

PSIA’s Cross Country Team skate-skied onto the slopes of Pamporovo with its own complete package of skills to share. “Being there helped us define ourselves and what we value,” said Lawrence. “We gave a high-quality performance; it was almost as if we over-prepared.” He added that, “The Czech Republic’s program emphasized learning classic, skate, and alpine skiing in one program. Because of time constraints, and the breadth of technique to cover, the cross country part of the program focused narrowly on certain drills and tasks that function in the beginner to intermediate zone, all of which look familiar to American cross country ski instructors.”

Lovett, Dixon to Coach Cross Country and Telemark Team

The new Coaches were announced for the 2020-24 National Team. Current Team member Emily Lovett will coach the Cross Country Team, and Telemark Team member Gregory Dixon will coach the Telemark Team.

How to Cross Country Ski Video

PSIA-AASI teamed up with SNOW Operating to create a free YouTube video series you and your resort can use to show beginners how to cross country ski and what they can expect on their first day. Watch the How to Cross Country Ski video series featuring PSIA Cross Country Team member Greg Rhodes.