The British Team has just been competing in the third event of the Indoor Series. This was a great weekend organised by the Scottish Telemark Club in Glasgow. Athletes from France and Finland travelled to compete in the event but it was British Team athletes, James and Jaz that finished first!

On Saturday there was a training day where the team enjoyed coaching from Seb Mansart, the Biritsh Team coach. Over lunchtime there was a roller skiing taster session organised by John Mordue and a strength and conditioning session from Chris Stewart, a former Birtish Telemark Champion, who owns Leading Physique near Manchester. In the evening everyone got together for dinner which included a well fought jelly slurping race!

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The race on Sunday was very well attended, lots of new faces and the largest start list of the series so far! The times were very tight at the top, the podium places were separated by only 0.36 seconds. The full results can be downloaded here: Glasgow Results. Well done to the top 6 racers who are:

1. James French
2. Jasmin Taylor
3. Antti-Pekka Auvinen (Finland)
4. Seb Mansart (France)
5. Sion Bingham
6. Allan Stevenson

In the team event:

1. Scottish Telemark Club A
2. Crozets
3. Marines

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Thank you so much the organisers, instructors, helpers, Snow Factor centre and the sponsors (Mountain Spirit, Ski Bartlett, Buff, Scott, Blues/Tiso and BASI). Thank you to Kevin McMurtrie sports event photography for the shots. It was a great weekend!

Last event of the series is in Hemel on 22/23rd August where the racers will fight it out for the overall series title!

The second event of the British Telemark Indoor Series was held in Tamworth at the weekend. On Saturday there was a telemark festival day with instruction from top BASI instructors. Ben and Nicko from Telemark Tracks brought NTN telemark equipment for people to try as well. Check out their website for photos and more event information. A huge thank you to them and Ian Acey for organising a fantastic day!

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On Sunday morning, Anne Ford and John Mordue organised a roller skiing taster session on the nearby cycle track. The importance of the skate section is often forgotten in the racing so it was great to get the opportunity to learn to roller ski as this can be used in summer training.

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On Sunday afternoon the second race of the series took place. The full results can be downloaded here: Tamworth results. Congratulations to the following who placed at the top:

1. James French
2. Sion Bingham
3. Colin Shepherd
4. Jasmin Taylor
5. Allan Stevenson
6. Patrick Mitchell

Again, a huge thank you to all those who helped gate judge, run the race and donated prizes (Buff, Ski Bartlett and Scott)! It was a fun weekend, next stop GLASGOW on 11/12th July.

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A fun, but also tiring, couple of weeks has come to a close today, finishing with the classic race in Rauris. Unfortunately the British Championships clashed with the German and Slovenian World Cups last week so only Jasmin competed in all three. There were challenging conditions in Germany and some crashes meant she had a tough few days but she found her form again yesterday coming 5th in the Rauris Sprint!

The British Team fielded a large squad in this Rauris World Cup with eight people competing and three forerunning. There was a sprint race yesterday and a very long classic today. This gave a lot of the new members of the youth, development and senior teams the opportunity to compete on the World Cup with a lot of support from the more experienced racers. Everyone did fantastically on some very steep and challenging courses!

Anna Morrissey is now retiring from racing and from her position as captain, Louis Hatchwell will be taking over as team captain. He will do a great job as he intends to commit more to the racing in the coming years. Next stop is the World Championships and World Junior championships in Steamboat, America!

The British Team have had a very successful Championships and have been training for the Rauris World Cup which starts tomorrow. Although lacking some snow it has been a fantastic two weeks and there are lots of new faces who have been selected for the squad. A huge thank you to the Army and the Rauris resort for organising the event.

Congratulations to Anna Morrissey and James French who are the 2015 British Champions. In the men, Frederick Thomas came second and Louis Hatchwell third.

Congratulations to the following people who have been selected for the following teams:

World Cup Team

• Jasmin Taylor
• James French
• Louis Hatchwell
• Frederick Thomas
• Jasper Taylor

Development Team

• Robert Houstoun
• Ben Atkinson

Junior Team

• Sion Bingham

Junior Development Team

• Tom Wotton

Youth Team

• Ollie Wotton
• Magnus McIntosh

Jasmin Taylor has been competing in the Slovenian and German World Cups and has now joined the team in Rauris ready for the World Cup sprint tomorrow.

The British Telemark Championships are a fantastic way to improve your skiing and meet fellow telemarkers. It is a two week trip based in Rauris, Austria. It is organised by the Army, but is open to civilians also. It is always a very enjoyable trip and is well attended by the telemark community.

The first week is coaching followed by a week of races. There are Development races aimed at beginners and everyone else has the opportunity to compete in the Championships races. There are sprint, classic and GS races. The sprint and classic contain a jump, gates, rap and skate section. Check out some World Cup Telemark videos on youtube to give you an idea but don’t let that scare you! These races are open to all abilities.

There is also a mountain race on the last day where telemark is taken back to it’s roots. The skins are brought out and it is a mass start up the mountain…a hot bowl of goulash soup awaits you at the finish line!

Download the poster here and book your place: British Telemark Championships Poster

Last weekend the team had a strength and conditioning weekend at Leading Physique, organised by Chris Stewart. Chris is a three time British Telemark Champion who has had two top 15 places in a World Cup. He has recently put his skiing career on hold to set up a new gym near Clitheroe.

On Saturday Chris taught the team the correct movements for the exercises with very light weights. This was followed by a full work out on Sunday. Some of the exercises he taught the team were really interesting and were not the standard exercises you can do in a gym. The hardest exercise was pushing a weighted sledge up and down a slope. Chris has done a lot of work finding exercises that work the same muscles as telemark skiing and this definitely got the legs burning!

A huge thank you to Chris for a fantastic weekend. The team will look to use this facility more in the future and Chris’s expertise.

On Saturday 19th there was a mini telemark festival with two training sessions, a strength and conditioning talk/demo from three time British Telemark Champion Chris Stewart and a curry in the evening to finish it off. The training sessions were run by top coaches: Danny McCabe (BASI), Andy Stewart, Chris Stewart and Jack Morrissey. In the morning there was general group training and gate training was available in the afternoon for those who wanted to have a go.

On Sunday 20th we had the third race of the series. The Glasgow ski centre kindly fenced off half the slope for the event and helped set the gates and run the timing. They have been so helpful for this event, as they were last year. Thank you so much to the sponsors for fantastic prizes yet again! Buff, Trespass, Blues and Mountain Spirit. See the photos below for the lucky prizewinners. Thanks also to the Royal Marines who provided radios for the races and BASI who provided an instructor. Finally a big thank you to all those parents and friends who marshalled and organised the races, especially James and Jack who ran the race.

Below are the STC members results, well done to all! You can download the overall Glasgow Telemark results here! The Scottish Telemark Club dominated in the team and individual competitions with their there teams placing 1st, 2nd and 4th and there was an STC member in first place in every age category except one!

The next event in is Hemel Hempstead in September, come along if you want to learn to telemark.

The British Indoor Telemark Series is well under way with two down and two to go! It was a fantastically sunny weekend in Tamworth which was unfortunately spent indoors but everyone had a great time doing it. A huge turn out for the festival and race day – thank you to everyone that took part, it’s was lovely to see so many telemarkers.

The guys from Teletracks organised the festival day which offered coaching from top BASI coaches with video analysis. Over lunchtime there was an introduction to strength and conditioning from Andy David who is a former professional athlete and British Freestyle Skiing Champion who is now a Level 4 Master Personal Trainer. Thank you to all these guys who made it a fantastic day.

The race on sunday was very well organised by British Team member Jack Harvard Taylor and Ben Langridge from TeleTracks. Also a huge thank you to the sponsors who provided the prizes: Buff, Scott and Back Country UK. The results can be downloaded here: Tamworth Results. Congratulations to all prize winners, overall results for top 10 were:

• 1st James French
• 2nd Colin Shepherd
• 3rd Ed Lees
• 4th Sion Bingham
• 5th Louis Hatchwell
• 6th Anna Morrissey
• 7th Will Bellamy
• 8th Martin Chohan
• 9th Paddy Armour
• 10th Frankie Vaughan

The next event will be in Glasgow on the 19/20th July. PLEASE NOTE THE DATE FOR HEMEL HAS CHANGED TO SEPTEMBER 27TH.

The telemark weekend in Manchester was a huge success! Both days were well attended with over 30 competitors in the race on Sunday. A huge thank you to the guys from TeleTracks who brought along some Scott NTN equipment and provided some excellent race coaching on Saturday. Thank you also to Buff and Scott who provided some fantastic prizes. When we have fixed the site we will add some photos.

The overall results are available here: Manchester Results PDF.

Finally, congratulations to the prize winners:

Masters Men

• 1st Colin Shepherd
• 2nd Tigs Chohan
• 3rd Gordon MacRae

Masters Ladies

• 1st Alison Morrissey
• 2nd Alexandra Bojarska
• 3rd Sally Bartlett

Senior Men

• 1st Danny Johnson
• 2nd William Bellamy
• 3rd Paul McAree

Senior Women

• 1st Anna Morrissey

Junior Men

• 1st Robbie Housoun
• 2nd Jasper Taylor
• 3rd Sion Bingham

U16 Boys

• 1st Scott Williams
• 2nd Barney Hodge
• 3rd Daniel Porteous

Team Competition:

• 1st Scottish Telemark Club
• 2nd Army
• 3rd Royal Marines Reserves A
• 4th Manchester Telemark Club
• 5th Royal Marines Reserves B

Thanks for making the weekend such a success. It was great to see so many new faces and of course the regular attenders. The bar has been set high for the rest of the races!

British Telemark have just finished another successful development camp in Val d’Isère training with Ben Langridge from TeleTracks. He organised a great week which focused on the race start, skating, gates and jumping with video analysis after each session. It was a fantastic introduction to racing for the newer members and great development for the more experienced racers.

Day one: Drills, technical skiing and a chance for Ben to asses the ability of the group.

Day two: Gate training on the parallel course at the Bonnevie Stade.

Day three: Race starts and skating.

Day four: GS Fléche race on the ‘Orange’ piste.

Day five: Gate training on the parallel course at the Bonnevie Stade.

Day six: Gate training on GS course with a jump at the Bonnevie Stade.

Skate training

Everyone improved throughout the week and it was great to see some new faces who are keen to get involved in telemark racing. Ben’s own Alpine racing experience and numerous seasons on telemark mean he is a great coach to take the Development Camp. British Team member Anna commented on the week:

“Ben is very passionate about telemark and it really shows when he is teaching. He explains things very clearly and I especially learn a lot from his video analysis sessions. He is a fantastic skier himself so he demonstrates drills well.”

It is an exciting time for British Telemark with lots of new faces each year and a strong season finishing in 5th place overall out of 13 nations this World Cup season. Sadly this was the last week of skiing for British Telemark this winter but the indoor races are fast approaching!

Ed, Phil, Paddy, Anna and Robbie before the Flèche race

Next season TeleTracks will be running a few telemark weeks in Val d’Isère for all abilities, keep an eye on their website for more details. If you have your own group they can tailor the week to what you want too, contact them directly for more details. They have a big selection of Scott NTN telemark kit in resort so you can rent equipment from them or try NTN if you are considering moving from the cable bindings! They will be taking some race training at three of the indoor races this summer at Manchester, Tamworth and Hemel so you can meet them there.

A huge thank you to Ben and TeleTracks for another fantastic week, see you next year!

The Bonnevie Stade, Val d’Isère