Pioneer turn coming back into popularity

Press, 25 August 1983, Page 25

Pioneer turn coming back into popularity

by

are going to demonstrate a new helicopter bombing procedure for avalanche control with the idea of getting Civil Aviation approval for future use. It is illegal to carry explosive charges in a helicopter. If approval is granted the avalanche control team will subsequently be able to check the stability of potentially hazardous slopes by flying into the area and “bombing” . check-points early in the morning before parties of skiers arrive. Mr Brian Carter, the general manager of Alpine Guides, said that the procedure was relatively common overseas, but not previously tried in New Zealand. It is believed Mount Hutt is also keen to make bombing part of its snow safety programme. Thanks boys The New Zealand Ski Association’s coffers, never exactly overflowing, were bolstered this week through the deeds of three members of the national A team. Marcus Hubrich, Bruce Grant, and Simon Wi Rutene won a total of $6OO in prize money in the Coronet Peak Pro-am on Monday. Hubrich became the first New Zealand amateur to win the dual slalom event; Grant was third; and Wi Rutene also made the final eight. Their coach, Russell Thomson, accepted the sponsor’s cheque on behalf of the N.Z.S.A.

Telemark turns, something the ski-ing pioneers used to do in the days when bindings had no fixed heels, are coming back into fashion.

Trying to link these smooth and graceful steered turns down steep slopes is providing skiers with a fresh challenge and boosting their egos when they succeed.

In the old days, Telemarks, which require an initially strange scissorleg action, were most appropriate in deep powder. Now they’re being used on all types of snow, including hard-pack. Telemarking will even become part of the competition scene here this winter with fun races scheduled for three different New Zealand venues — Cardrona on September 3, Mount Hutt on September 10, and Turoa on October 8.

Hamish Cochran, the Christchurch skier who is importing Karhu crosscountry skis and organising the Telemark series, expects a good turn-out for the three events.

“Every day I get a call from someone asking ‘Where can I get these skis?',” Cochran said. “They all seem keen to have a go.” Judging by the response so far Cochran expects

about 30 skiers at each of the two events in the South Island. “I won’t be surprised if we get up to 50.”

Emphasis will not be placed on winning during the Karhu Telemark series. The prizes will probably be drawn out of a hat.

Neither will it pay to stray from the Telemark turn. “There will be a penalty for ski-ing parallel,” Cochran said. The races will have skiers competing head-to-head on reasonably dual courses and all of them will get at least two runs.

In some areas in the United States, he said, 30 per cent of the people were ski-ing on Telemark skis, which were lighter and thinner than ordinary alpine skis.

There was a growing interest in Telemark in New Zealand, but no real instruction being done at present. “Most of the people are teaching themselves,” Cochran said. The forthcoming series should help to get the Telemarkers trading ideas. “We want to encourage people to have a go. They’re not going to make fools of themselves,” Cochran said. Entry to the races is free and so are the special Telemark clinics being held on the morning of each event. These clinics will be run by Bruce Moffat, an American instructor who sells Telemark equipment in his Dunedin shop, and Ewen Carr, a New Zealander from Pateoroa, who has won Telemark races in the United States.

The Telemark, by the way, was the first real skiing turn and was considered the ultimate in technique for more than 50 years after being invented by a skijumper, Sondre Norheim, in about 1868. It was named after his home town:, Telemark, Norway.

In 1983 the Telemark i:s not a lot different from the one New Zealand skiers discarded more than 30 years ago. “It’s exactly the same turn using modern equipment,” Cochran says.

VIEWS FROM THE TOP

Tim Dunbar

Safety impresses Ski-ing, thankfully, is not as dangerous as parachuting — at least as far as the New Zealand men’s squash team is concerned. Ross Norman, one member of the national squad for the world championships, ended with his knee in plaster after a parachuting accident in Britain recently and might be forced out of big squash altogether. But another squad member, Paul Viggers, recently came through his first ski-ing week-end unscathed, in spite of one spectacular tangle with a pile of skis. He picked up the sport well enough to tackle the T-bar slope later. TV programmes In spite of high winds, thunder and lightning, whiteouts, mountain closures, and one or two other problems, Television new Zealand managed to get some pretty good pictures from their lengthy stint at Mount Hutt for the 1983 Europa F.I.S. ski-racing series. The efforts of the television crews will go to air in five programmes, the first of which will be shown on Saturday, September 10, at 4 p.m. The other four programmes will be shown during the sports programme on consecutive Saturday afternoons. Some of the world’s top skiers, both men and women, will be seen in

action in downhill, slalom, and giant slalom. With the Winter Olympics at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, only about five months away, several countries have expressed great interest in the programmes and TVNZ is already able to report one definite sale — to an Australian channel. Help for disabled One simple adjustment to the triple chairlift has been a great help to disabled skiers at Mount Hutt. Previously the lift had to be stopped altogether for loading the fibreglass sit-sled, called the Arroya, which has opened up ski-ing to paraplegics. Now the lift only has to be slowed down and the sled slipped in from the front, instead of sideways as in the past. Two of the chairs, both marked, have had the bottom one of four struts at the back removed to allow this procedure. Roz Service, the instructor for the Christchurch branch of the New Zealand Association for Disabled Skiers, says that it is quite simple for the paraplegics to unload themselves and their sleds at the top of the lift. All they have to do is push off with their two hands. On their way back down the slopes the sledders have to be tethered to a skier holding a rope as a safety procedure. Roz Service says that the Arroya is “a neat device — it’s really fun to ski with.”