 |
Tele-Vision |
by Gene Klein | |
|
|||
|
|
Ask people what they think of telemarking and they will probably answer that they don't like being interrupted by a phone call during the dinner hour. Even after you clarify that you didn't say telemarketing but instead were referring to a style of skiing... you would probably still get a somewhat perplexed look. Actually, the word telemark is the name of a district in Norway where a type of ski turn was popularized in the late 19th century... that makes it a grandfather to today's relatively adolescent and limiting skiing style known as parallel. Equipment was very different in those days, skis and bindings were primitive and only the front of the foot was held to the ski, leaving the heel free to move up and down. A long staff, held in the middle like a kayak paddle was a set of poles. An old timer by the name of Sondre Norheim practiced a turn that looked like a Catholic genuflection on skis. It was effective at creating a long stable platform in a variety of conditions. When modern bindings evolved and fixing the entire boot to the ski improved stability, the telemark turn faded from the scene. In the 1970's, ski bohemians, being of throwback mindset, rekindled interest in the old turn, using lightweight cross-country equipment. Ten years later, a firestorm of telemarkers swept onto the slopes. Along with increasing numbers cane a response by the ski companies to tap the market, resulting in improved skis and boots, possibly even too much improvement for some of the sport's purists who prefer leather boots and lightweight skis to plastic boots and wide heavy boards. The number of people telemark skiing is slowly increasing in the 90's as alpine skiers, looking for new challenges, cross-over into the nordic world.
Whatever you call them, telemarkers, tele-whackers, wood and woolies, or just plain pinheads, they all enjoy the ability to make the progression of turns of the alpine skier, the wedge, wedge-christie, parallel and the one an alpine skier can't make... the elegant telemark. |
