The British Association of Snowsports Instructors Interski 2015 delegation has just returned from Ushuaia, Argentina and one of its most successful Interski’s ever.
Throughout the week the performance and delivery both on and off the snow turned heads in the snowsports industry and Great Britain’s Demo’ Team of: Jaz Lamb, Rupert Goldring, Paul Garner, Giles Lewis, Craig Robinson, James Lister, Lynn Sharp, Amanda Pirie, James Bennett, Jas Bruce, Becci Malthouse and Rupert Tildesley asserted the credibility of British trained snowsports instructors globally.
Andrew Lockerbie, BASI’s Chief Executive Officer commented:
“Great Britain’s Interski 2015 team did not only the membership of BASI proud in Argentina but were a credit to the UK’s snowsports industry as a whole. There wasn’t one country that didn’t come up to our Chairman, Gareth Roberts and me to congratulate and compliment the team. They were impressed with how the team looked, performed and presented themselves. Thanks must also go to our sponsors for this too.”
The Interski Congress took place over 6 days in September and over those 6 days each of the 36 nations presented 5 on slope demonstrations, 2 on-snow workshops and 2 off slope mini lectures, key note lectures and a 4 day ski school session run for 50 local children with instructors provided by the delegations (including BASI). There is a direct correlation to a countries performance on the demonstration slope to the numbers who then attend a nation’s on-snow and off-snow workshops and lectures.
As a result of BASI’s demonstration of high performance skiing, there was great attendance at both the work-shops; Form- based to Skills- based teaching and the Bumps session. The off-slope lectures saw equally good participation from a wide variety of participating nations.
In addition to the technical exchanges, there was a mixed nation team dual slalom competition. Three of BASI’s demonstrators; Amanda Pirie, Lynn Sharp and Craig Robinson were successful in the qualifying rounds and Lynn and Craig stormed through to the finals along with their Italian and Japanese team mates to narrowly be pipped into 2nd in a closely fought final.
Great Britain’s recognition as a major player in the world of snowsports instruction was also underscored by BASI’s Dave Renouf being elected as 1st Vice President on the Interski Board. This means Great Britain will play a key role in shaping and developing the format and content of the next Interski Event in 2019 which will be hosted by Bulgaria.
The British delegation, under the management of Roy Henderson, certainly delivered the objective of ensuring the credibility of all BASI’s discipline qualifications to enable all levels of BASI members to access employment around the world. As a result of the key communications messages developed prior to Interski 2015 and delivered there, we are already beginning to see a return with a number of new instructor job posts coming on stream in this week from Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and France.
To follow what happened at Interski 2015 and review the content of workshops delivered not only by Great Britain but also other countries visit: http://www.basiinterski.org.uk/.
For further information and pictures please contact:
Tania Alliod
TEL 01479 780013 or email tania@basi.org.uk