North American Ski Training Center – Tahoe, CA

Tag: Mammoth

  • New U.S Ski Team Women’s Tech Coach

    New U.S Ski Team Women’s Tech Coach

    New U.S. Women’s Tech Coach Pfeifer Sees Promise

    By Eric Williams
    Published on Ski Racing

    Recently named U.S. Alpine Ski Team women’s tech coach, Roland Pfeifer has his work cut out for him.

    The Austria native is charged with bringing the program “up to speed” after last season saw the team pull in a meager 10 top-10 results and just one podium. Though he hasn’t met most of his new stable of athletes, he’s already formulating plans for the season and anxious to hit the southern hemisphere snow later this summer.

    Pfeifer comes to the U.S. Team with a wealth of experience as both an athlete on the World Cup and U.S. Pro Tour as well as a coach at Ski Austria feeder program, Vorarlberg Ski Team. After his daughter turned 18 in January, he made the decision to hit the road and step up to the sport’s top level.

    Pfeifer will focus most of his efforts on working with gate racers Sarah Schleper, Resi Stiegler, Hailey Duke, Megan McJames and Mikaela Shiffrin, while occasionally providing support to all-around skiers Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso.

    His recipe for success calls for fun, communication and lots of work. “We need to make them ski relaxed. We need to bring some fresh motivation and fun into the team,” said Pfeifer. “We need to convince them of what we are doing and we need to talk a lot, and train a lot.”

    “I haven’t met them yet but I know Schleper and Stiegler are top competitors and can get to the top-10 many times this season and some podiums as well,” continued Pfeifer. “Duke and McJames’ goals will be to consistently make the top 30 and progress up from there.”

    Pfeifer’s first exposure to his new squad came last week at an on-snow camp in Mammoth with reigning slalom national champion, 16-year-old phenom Mikaela Shiffrin.

    “I’ve got this unbelievably talented and gifted Shiffrin. She is skiing like a grownup already,” said Pfeifer after spending several days on snow Shiffrin. “I’m not putting too much pressure on Mikaela because she is 16 years old, I’m not going to set any goals for results, just to qualify top-30.”

    While Pfeifer isn’t setting result expectations for Shiffrin, he is confident she is ready to compete with the world’s best. “She shows really good skiing, I like the way she skis and I like her,” said Pfeifer. “I’ve never met a 16-year-old that knows so much about skiing and she loves it. There is no reason to hold her back, I see her absolutely competing on the World Cup circuit, no doubt about it.”

  • Michael Rogan & U.S Ski Team

    Looks like the U.S Women’s Ski Team has garnered a little help from PSIA.  While at their annual “Back to Basics” camp at Mammoth, U.S women’s speed Head Coach, Chip White enlisted help from PSIA National Alpine Team Captain, Michael Rogan.  Michael helped design a number of drills for the athletes to help the athletes better deal with terrain changes.  US Ski Team members, Stacey Cook, Leanne Smith, and Laurenne Ross were some of the few athletes that participated in the camp  “It’s really important to have his perspective,” added White. “He’s been with PSIA for over 15 years and captain of the Demo Team for eight of those years. The drills he created are incredible and we’ve already seen progress. Leanne Smith for example was making awesome position changes over terrain later in the camp.”
     Another outcome of the camps was a number of new warm-up routines were developed for athletes to use prior to training and races.

    The U.S Men’s Team is now at Mammoth at their own spring training camp.

  • PSIA-W Convention

    PSIA-Western Divison will be holding it’s annual convention at Mammoth April 29th to May 1st.  Chris Fellows will be heading down there to present Total Skiing to the membership.  Convention is an education event, where instructors from all over  the state of California will assemble and participate in on-snow clinics for three days.  It’s a great event, because the energy his high, everyone is game to learn and ski and you see familiar faces that you might not get to see otherwise.  The event also gives the membership an opportunity to get together and get to know one another off the snow and form stronger bonds and relationships.  The event will also host Mike Rogan, Mike Hafer , Richie Jameson and Robin Barnes as guest clinicians.  We are proud to be members of such a strong division and organization.