Skiing video analysis and race training at Treble Cone!
The northern hemisphere season is now coming at a close. But ski race training, including Skiing video analysis, goes on for many top athletes. This week we talked to Guenther Birgmann, the owner of Treble Cone Race Academy. We can really relate to his job; spending most of the southern hemisphere ski season at Treble Cone just outside Lake Wanaka, our favorite NZ mountain with the bonus of spectacular views. We have thrown in a cool shot of TC for this blog, just so you can see what we mean!
Guenther has been coaching for 30 years or almost all of his professional ski life. His career covers, Europe, North America and New Zealand. He is as knowledgeable and as experienced as anyone in the industry. He has also been a Sprongo skiing video analysis user from the outset, initially at Sugar Bowl Academy, CA. He continues to find it an invaluable tool in his training programs. Every one of the athletes that he trains uses it for analysis performance analysis.
He has owned and operated TCRA since 2011, after taking it over from Treble Cone resort. Prior to this, he had spent a number of years as the head coach at TC and Sugar Bowl Academy.
TCRA is arguably the leading program for training ski athletes outside the northern hemisphere winter. International athletes arrive in July and train through to the first week of September.
Each season, TRCA brings 80 top level athletes to Wanaka for ski race training, from Europe, the US and Canada, in the U18 and U21 age groups. In addition, it organizes training and facilities for 10 to 12 international teams. This includes the Austrian and US National ski teams and several well known ski academies. The academies include Rowmark, Sports Unity, Vail Academy, Mammouth and Sugar Bowl. Most of the training takes place at Treble Cone but there is also activity at Coronet Peak in Queenstown, Cardrona near Wanaka and Mt Hutt in Canterbury.
The program has been extremely successfully. The demand is greater than the places available. The programs have also added an international flavor to skiing in NZ and are helping to stimulate more interest in competitive skiing locally. It has helped to bring international recognition to the NZ Winter Games.
During the Northern Hemisphere season TCRA operates from Vail and Copper. It focuses on a small group of 12 full time international athletes. Generally, these are athletes that have chosen to be in a different program to their national development pipeline. There are only 2 to 3 teams worldwide who do this normally in partnership with national federations.
Look forward to seeing you in July at TC!