Telemark racing in the Olympics? FIS supports the idea for 2022

[marzNC]

Have you heard of telemark racing? I never did until today. Turns out there are well organized World Cup races. Mostly in Europe, but there was an event at Sugarbush in January 2018. Recently, there was a vote by FIS to support the idea of including Telemark Parallel Sprint and Team Parallel Sprint in a future winter Olympics. Since those involve head-to-head racing, the format is more fun for spectators than the Classic or Sprint Classic.

Telemark racing is a combo race because it includes gates, a jump, and skating skiing on a slight uphill slope at the end. Below is a description from USTSA. All turns must be tele turns or a penalty is assessed.

 

[marzNC]

This video shows Men's Parallel Spring races from the Word Cup in 2017.

 

[marzNC]

Apparently there are several up and coming female juniors competing in World Cup Telemark. The first section of the 2-hour video of the complete Classic races in Norway in March 2017 is the Women's race. Several of the competitors had just finished the junior competition. The American commentator is not that knowledgeable but he tries hard.

 

[marzNC]

There is a 6-min video put together in support of the effort to get Telemark racing into the Olympics. It's posted on Facebook somewhere. A lot of countries are represented, including the UK, France, Japan, as well as Norway where modern telemark skiing began in the 19th century. The video is included in the article about the FIS vote to recommend to the IOC to include Telemark Parallel Sprint races.

TELEMARK STEPS CLOSER TO THE OLYMPICS - May 18, 2018

 

[KathrynC]

Ooh, I would be up for this!

Supporting, not competing, I mean...

 

[racetiger]

Telemark is intriguing. I just saw a video the other day of a telemark skier hitting rails and stuff in the terrain park!

 

[marzNC]

The first section of the 2-hour video of the complete Classic races in Norway in March 2017 is the Women's race.

Here are the stats for the March 2017 races in the video in Post #3. For the jump, there is a minimum distance or else a penalty is assessed. The "loom" is the 360 banked turn just before skate skiing starts.

 

[marzNC]

Telemark is intriguing. I just saw a video the other day of a telemark skier hitting rails and stuff in the terrain park!

What I've learned watching my daughter and my own recent experience in a private beginner lesson is that it's easy to make alpine parallel turns with tele bindings. Especially when the skis are standard alpine skis. My daughter's skis are Black Pearls. She skis the harder blacks at Alta without any tele turns because she only had a few seasons learning tele in middle school. Tele gear is more versatile because of the free heel. Just as AT gear is designed to make going up a relatively steep pitch for an hour or more easier than with standard alpine bindings.

The skis being used for the tele racing look more like nordic skis. Somewhat longer and narrower, but I assume they have metal edges. The long pole length is selected for the final section that has to be handled as nordic.

 

[marzNC]

Found a video of telemark racing in Colorado in 2012. They even raced under lights.