Alpine PT Takes Telemark Ski Racing Back to the Top - by Brent DOdge

Missoula has many old sporting traditions. The Missoula Telemark Challenge proudly celebrates it’s 31st consecutive year of telemark dual slalom ski racing this year. This event is hosted at the regionally famous Snowbowl Ski Area’s Sunrise Bowl each Thursday night for 6 weeks. 

Alpine Physical Therapy is proud to return it’s old crew of fear-appreciative, free-heelin’  racers to the wintry slopes in 2014.  Team Glu-TELE Maximus is pleased to welcome first time racer Eric McBride (pictured below in the group shot to the far left). One of the (soft) rules of the Missoula Telemark Challenge is that each team needs a new racer on the team each year. This rule is in place to keep an old sport with a diminishing turn out each year alive and strong… as one’s power lunge muscle, the Gluteus Maximus. ​
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Team Alpine PT has been teetering between 2nd and 3rd place this year, and the race nights have been a powdery blast. Willy Welzenbach, pictured 2nd from the right in the team photo and lunging into his tele-turn in the action photo, ended both of his races without a ski last week. Exciting stuff, great team camaraderie, and an excellent snow pack thus far for those that like to make turns on something other than blue ice.

Stay tuned for a second blog post exploring strength training advice from David Hobbs, ex-Pro Telemark Racer, and Brace Hayden, NSCA Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and Doctor of Physical Therapy (pictured far right).  It is never too late in the season to improve one’s telemark turns on or off the slalom course.

Alpine’s physical therapists also offer the telemark racers free sports injury consults throughout the racing season.