Giorgia Menetre Is Forging a New Path for Women in Telemark

In early December of 2022, a video of a skier using the lowest of telemark styles started oozing its way onto Instagram feeds and forum message boards. Flying down the mountain, face in full smile under an incandescent sun, the skier made fast and deep lunges, the sleeves of their outerwear fluttering in the wind like a flag snapping in a gale.

The video, posted by free-heel newschool outfit TELE COLO , soon garnered over a thousand likes on their Instagram page. It would eventually find its way onto Teton Gravity Research’s page, where the video went viral. It amounted to not only one of TGR’s most watched posts of the season; it may have been one of the single largest instances of telemark impressions ever online. Comments on the video flowed forth. Many were positive, some critiqued the skier’s technique, all propelled the video further into viral territory. One commenter simply noted, “He’s going really low for tele skiing.”

But the skier was a woman–Coloradan and then University of Arizona student Giorgia Menetre. And it wasn’t the first time that mistake had been made.

The moment illustrated much in telemark. But Menetre’s impact on the sport goes further than a single viral video. Her path–one marked by not only positivity and perseverance, but also obstacles and redemption–exemplifies how a wider telemark culture is moving forward, if at times fitfully.

Menetre grew up in the free-heel cradle of Steamboat Springs, Colorado–a town that has produced several of TELE COLO’s team athletes, and whose local shop Ski Haus was once the leading Scarpa telemark boot dealer the world over.

Like many a mountain town toddler, Menetre was taught to ski in the alpine style shortly after learning to walk. But she made the transition to telemark at just seven years old. “It kind of came about as a way to connect with my dad. He was my hero so I wanted to be like him,” Menetre remembers. “And then I kind of just fell in love with the flow and just how it was kind of weird and different and it made me feel like I was a different person on the mountain than the rest of the skiers.”

Early in her telemark experience, Mentre found free-heel mentors not only in her father, but in a cadre of telemarking women. “Right off the bat, when I was little, I do remember having three women that were like mom-age that I kind of looked up to and I was like ‘oh wow, they’re doing it, it’s not only guys,’” says Menetre.

But telemark’s male-dominated atmosphere was ever-present. “When I started to get into my teenage years and such, I started skiing with some of the guys in Steamboat that were on the big mountain team and I was seriously the only girl tele-er I think that they knew, which was just so weird,” Menetre recalls.

While Menetre often felt like the lone woman in her telemark crew, she would soon find a modern free-heel vibe that not only matched what she was seeking; it would also bring her into the fold of a burgeoning group of female telemark skiers.

During her time studying both journalism and dance at the University of Arizona, Menetre came upon the Instagram page for a small free-heel group called Telemark Colorado. She was immediately drawn to the group’s energy. Seeking to be involved with the media outlet–a rarity in the telemark world–Menetre reached out to founder CJ Coccia. She would soon become an athlete and contributor for the group that would eventually be known as TELE COLO, featured in the outfit’s film projects.

During those assignments Menetre would travel to filming destinations where she came to meet a close-knit group of women telemark skiers involved with the TELE COLO project. Amongst those women were the Tele Mommies , a group of hard skiing, fun-loving free-heelers.

“It wasn’t until I got involved with TELE COLO and started meeting some of the ladies that live in Salt Lake and Summit County that I really felt like I had a community of girls in the telemark scene,” says Menetre.

This group of skiers, including Eliza Biondi, Brickley Biondi, Nina Asher, and Sofia Whitefields, has become one of the most visible groups in the sport. Their Tele Mommies ensemble strikes an aspirational and supportive quality, and has created a cadre of TELE COLO-adjacent women that has built a positive space for modern female free-heelers to take to the craft, giving the community an important resource.

“It’s just like any other thing, you talk about Olympic sports and things like that, like really seeing someone doing the sport that you can look up to, it’s just a game changer,” Menetre relates.

“Now I’m looking around at all my friends that are women that telemark ski and that is really heart-warming. And I feel like I can really look up to them. I still get like ‘dude, you dropped so low,’ and like ‘wow your turns are so cool, dude,’ and they totally think I’m a guy when I’m in my ski gear. And then I’ll usually be a little bit snarky and be like ‘I’m a girl, but thanks!’ kind of thing,” Menetre says.

Menetre’s arc has come all the way around. She still contributes to TELE COLO, helping Coccia create content for the TELE COLO magazines while acting as the brand manager for the advocacy group. “I remember at the beginning when I first found out about it I was like ‘dad, do you think I could work for them? Do you think they would hire me?’ And now here I am contracted with CJ, so it’s just been a cool full circle moment,” says Menetre.

Related: CJ Coccia Hits the Road With TELE COLO's Latest Telemark Skiing Film "This Ol' Mill"

That path back to the beginning has been one of triumphs, but hasn’t been without trials.

Two years ago Menetre began experiencing severe knee pain. After years of doctors visits and endless testing, she was finally diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. “Which is a pretty rough go as a 23 year old, very active individual,” says Menetre. “I quit all my sports, I stopped dancing, which I was going to college for.”

That change amounted to a reframing of her skiing experience, making something that always came so naturally an at times impossibly painful task.

“I would have days where I could ski and get kind of low and really have a good time and then I had days when I was riding a green all the way down the mountain, trying not to bend my knees, trying not to turn. So skiing looks a lot different for me these days,”she says.

While Menetre has faced personal health challenges that have unavoidably altered her skiing experience, she has also been the subject of harsh criticism from one of telemark’s most prominent voices.

In the fall of 2023, Josh Madsen, owner of the leading telemark ski shop Freeheel Life, and long one of the sport’s leading figures, denounced several telemark entities in his weekly podcast . That included an article by Menetre that plugged for TELE COLO’s film “THIS IS TELEMARK.”

In part, Menetre’s piece noted “the perception of telemark skiing remains aged—with floppy bindings, granola diets, unkempt beards, and smells of patchouli. TELE COLO is here to present the ski world with the new age of telemark culture that exists beyond the stereotype.”

To that Madsen responded on his Freeheel Life podcast: “the way that this is worded is so uneducated that it doesn’t make any sense,” continuing, “part of what irks me about this article is, one, the article sucks, it doesn’t even make any sense, but it shows that nobody’s really understanding the fundamentals and I think in this case historical fundamentals.”

Madsen’s attack of the article, both forceful and raw, thrust Menetre into the midst of a social media melee. While some supported Madsen’s views, there was widespread defense for Menetre, precipitating a repudiation of Madsen by many in the telemark scene. Open battles online and the creation of an anonymous Instagram account that bashed Madsen ensued. It’s all something Menetre has been surprised by.

“My initial reaction was shock because the things that he broke down in my article were genuine satire,” Menetre says. “I think it all just blew way out of proportion.”

“I never meant to take up more space than anyone else in the community. I just had the connection to SKI , obviously I work for them now, so I just wanted to help CJ out, I wanted to help TELE COLO out, I’m a writer,” she says. “And then to have this whole big reaction and social media and the hate accounts and things like that I was just like ‘gee, this is not what I thought was going to happen with this sweet little plug.’”

Related: A Steadfast Free-Heel Voice Has Gone Quiet

But while Menetre sees the episode as an attempt at gatekeeping–and that this notion may never fully leave snowsports at large and telemark in particular–she sees the sport’s momentum as moving in positive directions. “Even in the ski community at large, there’s going to be people that want it to stay really closed off from different kinds of people,” she says.

“I think the tele community still has even more of a gatekeeping vibe to it, especially in the older generations, but, I think everyone that I know and that I associate with at this time in the community is really trying to take a step toward inclusivity and just wanting more people to try it, and genuinely just wanting more people to experience the fun that they experience doing it. And so I think that’s really the driving factor behind the community at this point,” says Menetre.

Menetre’s path has had a redemptive quality to it. And time in her new home of Tucson has allowed a distance from skiing that has only aided in her gratitude for the sport and her community. “I’m a big advocate for ‘I don’t care what your turn looks like, I don’t care what the snow is like that day.’ I just want to go out there and have the best time ever,” Menetre says.

Encompassing an ethos that transcends all distinctions in the telemark world, Menetre sees the telemark as eminently soulful: An endeavor pure in its absolution of both the mundane and extraneous.

“I genuinely feel like I’m dancing as I go down the mountain,” says Menetre. “I ski to music because I feel like I really feel the rhythm in my soul when I’m making a tele turn, and I’m not even being dramatic,” she says, laughing. “I genuinely feel like the flow just seeps into my bones and really feeling that bouncing in and out of the turn is like none other.”