HPC coaches eat, sleep and breathe for their sport! They are passionate and enthusiastic about guiding up and coming Snowsports athletes towards reaching their goals.
2010 coach information coming soon...
Race 2009
Adi Bernasconi
Jonathon Rice
Conradign Netzer
Andre Holzer
Stefan Von Kaenel
Mike Jachacy
Tamara Bircher
Chris Mitchell
Jan Vokaty
Coach Bios
Adi Bernasconi - Head Coach
Adi is a Certified Ski Race Coach in Switzerland, with a total of 38 'back-to-back' winters in both Switzerland and New Zealand. Adi has spent 4 years on the Junior World Champs circuit coaching the best of New Zealand's younger athletes, attending a variety of Regional and International events. He was also an Olympic coach in Salt Lake City (2002).
As Head Coach of the Cardrona Race Team, Adi has a unique ability to create team cohesion within a range of abilities and ages, and above all athletes and parents alike warm to his nature. The success of our team last season is a direct reflection of our Coaching team and under Adi's guidance both coaches and athletes are constantly learning new skills, discipline and of course instilling a passion for their snowsport.
Jonathan Rice - HPCNZ Women's Team Coach/HPCNZ Strength & Conditioning Coach
Jonathan qualified as a ski instructor (fully certified) and then achieved level one coaching qualification through the NZSIA. Three years ago he was awarded the Prime Minister's scholarship to train as a Canadian Level 3 coach. In conjunction with his skiing qualifications Jonathan also has a four year university degree, majoring in sport science.
Conradign Netzer - HPCNZ Men's Team Coach
Conradign is from Switzerland and raced seriously until about 2006. Since then he was employed as a coach working with the Finland Europa Cup Team in 2007. This season he has been working with Swiss Ski, as head coach for the inter Regional team. He is also currently competing in skier cross at world cup level.
Andre Holzer - FIS Coach
André Holzer was born in 1983 in Stans, Switzerland. After the secondary level school he changed into the sport middle school in Engelberg (SUI). Earlier he was in the regional juniors skiing team IRM. His best results is 3rd at the juniors swiss championships downhill and 5th at the juniors Italian championships downhill. He was often in the top 10 at FIS races.
In 2006 he began to work as a ski instructor and did the ski instructor level 1 and in 2007 winter level 2. Sometimes he coaches the ski team from Engelberg. In his free time he does lots of sports for example: playing ice hockey, climbing, mountain biking.
Chris Mitchell - E & K Race Coach
Chris has his Alpine performance Coach (APC) level 1 and an Alpine Freestyle Development qualification level 1 and 2. He skied on the national Scottish Ski Team with Mike Jachacy, spending the winter in Quebec along with training and racing in Europe.
Since then he has spent a season in Whistler freeriding and also the 2007 winter at Cardrona. Meanwhile when available he has also been coaching with the Cairngorm Ski Club over the last four or five years. Currently he is in Austria teaching for a ski school through the busy period and will be back in Scotland over Easter to run a freestyle camp for the local youngsters.
Jan Vokaty -
Tamara Bircher - E & K Race Coach
Tamara was born in Switzerland and raced in the Swiss Junior National and Swiss C-Team until 2005. She skied FIS and Europa-cup in every discipline. She then gained her ski instructor level 1 to 3 qualifications and worked in the Swiss Snowsports School in Adelboden. She also helped out with coaching the juniors in Adelboden.
She worked for Cardrona HPC in 2007 as a E+K Coach and is very excited to share all her race-experiences with the kids and looks forward to see them all again.
Masters 2009
Christoph Guillery
Snowboard 2009
Jody Blatchley
Pierre Marasti
Rachel Newton
Will Harris
Lesley McKenna
Julianne Bray
Paula Mitchell
Euan Baxter
Coach Bios
Jody Blatchley - Head Snowboard Coach
Jody began snowboarding at the age of 15 in the French Alps, where he gained freeride experience and developed his snowboarding passion. He competed at an international Level for five years, then moved to New Zealand.
In 2003 he moved to Wanaka and gained his Stage 1 (level 2) Instructor certification at Cardrona. He has since become a fully certified instructor.
For the Last four years he has been the head coach for the Mt Ruapehu Competitive Freestyle Team, with a loyal following and some great achievements along the way. In addition to his coaching at Ruapehu, he trained instructors at Heavenly at Tahoe and was a contributing coach for the South Shore Soldiers camps.
Jody's most recent accomplishment is becoming a selector for the NZSBU, a newly formed union to identify New Zealand snowboard Talent.
Pierre Marasti
Belgian Certified Snowboard Instructor
PSIA Freestyle coaching level 2
Pierre has done 16 seasons 'back to back' and has spent six seasons in Wanaka, which he considers his home base. He has been teaching for seven years, which enables him to ride all year round and keep progressing. This has paid off as he won the 2008 Belgian boarder cross title, the Belgian Free Style Snowboard Championship in 2005, and finished 3rd at the Queenstown Big Air in 2003. Currently, Pierre is filming for a Belgian snowboard video called "Private".
Paula Mitchell
NZSIA Level two (stage one)
Canadian level one freestyle coach
Paula has been snowboarding for 10 years, 17 seasons total. This includes 3 seasons coaching experience and 10 seasons instructing. Paula loves coaching and coached the Mt Hutt Academy (Canterbury's Regional programme) for three years before moving to Wanaka for better halfpipes.
Recently Paula has been competing in the World Cup this last northern hemisphere for halfpipe trying to qualify for the Olympics, sitting one place away from gaining a New Zealand quota spot.
Rachel Newton
Stage 2 - Skiing
Level 3 - AASI
AASI - Trainer and Examiner 1997-1999
Rachel has been in the Snow Sports industry for 17 years, coaching both skiing and snowboarding (snowboarding for the past 5 years).
She was a HP and SBX World Cup athlete in 2000 and has a great deal of coaching experience. Her roles include; Switch Academy Program Director 2006 & 2007, N.L.C (Next Level Camps) Camp Director 2007 & 2008 and she has just finished a season coaching full time with athletes from the Canadian SBX Development Team on the high performance program run through C.O.P (Canada Olympic Park)
The mountains are her love and her life!
Julianne Bray
Julianne is currently ranked 13th in the World Cup Half Pipe, her best result this year was 5th in HP at the FIS World Cup in Quebec.
She has been snowboarding for 17 years and my career highlights are:
1st in BX at the 2001 World Cup in Asahikawa Japan
2nd in HP at the 2006 World Cup in Leysin Switzerland
16th in HP at the 2006 Olympics
22nd in BX at the 2006 Olympics
Major Sponsors: Burton Snowboards, B by Burton Apparel, Gravis Shoes and Anon Eyewear.
Sponsors: Cardrona Alpine Resort, Chop, Nixon Watches, Missy's Kitchen, Quest Snowboard Shop Wanaka.
Supported by: Jo Bray, Dick Shultz, the NZ Academy of Sport, Winter Preformance Program, and the Skeggs Foundation.
Freeski 2009
Peter Legnavsky - Head coach
Marty Jillings
Janina Kuzma
Byron Wells
Greg Harrington
Tommy Pyatt
Coach Bios
Pete Legnavsky - Head Freeski Coach
Head Freeski Coach
NZSIA Examiner/Trainer
NZSIA Pipe & Park/Freeski Examiner/Trainer
Masters in Physical Education
Peter is hugely experienced and well qualified with 30 years on snow, 15 years competing including 4 years on the World Cup circuit. For the past 11 years Pete has been Coaching Freeskiing and working with the NZSIA on developing NZSIA Freeskiing Coaches courses. Life in Wanaka is pretty hectic for Pete who owns a local gym with his wife (Bridget) and their young son, and he is very much involved in promoting and supporting the community in relation to sport and fitness training.
Marty Jillings
NZSIA Pipe & Park/Freeski Examiner/Trainer
Otago Polytechnic Diploma in Sport Management And Coaching
Janina Kuzma
CSIA Level 1
NZSIA Level 1 Park & Pipe
Janina Kuzma, who has spent the past two seasons as a Ski Instructor/Freeski Coach for Cardrona, and with her growing compeition success Janina will be a full time Coach this season. Just some of her podiums include - 2007 1st Canadian Freeski championships, 2007 3rd. 2006 1st Fernie freeski, 2005 1st. 2006 1st NZ freeski open, 2005 1st. 2006 1st Marmot Extreme. 2005 1st Lake Lousie freeski, 2006 3rd.
Tommy Pyatt
NZSIA level two - ski
NZSIA level two - pipe and park
SBINZ level two - snowboard
Tommy has experience coaching freesyle and freeski teams and has worked nine back to back winters so far. This is his first season at Cardrona after moving down here from the North Island.
