The passion for skiing and the adrenaline of stepping on a snow slope were always on the surface in the family of Matthias Pinna. His father was an instructor and his mother an expert skier. They met when he was doing a season in a center in Verbier, Switzerland, and he had to teach an English tourist; who would eventually become his wife. He settled with her in England and her first child was born in that country. Therefore, his name is written with two “t” and one “h”.
Matthias’s first contact with snow was at the age of 4 and his parents’ feeling did not fail him: he was brilliant and could have a promising future if he put his mind to it. At the age of 9, when they moved to Bariloche permanently, they all made Cerro Catedral his place of belonging.
Under his dad’s supervision, Matthias started out skiing for fun during his childhood and at the age of 11 he started competing in alpine skiing. But the big change came when he finished high school as he felt the desire to continue the family legacy. Today, he is not only an instructor like his father, but one of the most recognized in Argentina and one of the best in the world.
This was demonstrated during Interski 2023, the most important International Congress in the world for snow professionals, which took place in Levi, Finland, between March 26 and 31.
In total, there were 37 countries that exchanged experiences and knowledge related to the teaching of snow sports through lectures and workshops. The Demo Team Argentina, which is the team that brings together the 8 best ski instructors, the 4 snowboard instructors and the 4 coaches of our country, stood out with choreographic presentations capturing their technique and creativity on the slopes.
Of the three workshops that Argentina offered, Matthias participated in two: one aimed at teaching high-performance athletes and another on the compensation technique, which is typical of Argentina. “I never imagined being part of an Interski, sharing the track with the best skiers in the world and exchanging teaching techniques”, admitted the young man.
“Although it is not a competition, it gave us a parameter of how we are positioned against the rest of the teams. We are very satisfied with the feedback we had at the ski and workshop level ”, she remarked.
An important detail is what happened at the end of the event, after the presentation made by the ski team wearing ponchos and to the rhythm of “A Don Ata”, the song by Soledad Pastorutti. The closing was musicalized by the song “Muchachos”, by La Mosca, to honor the Argentine National Team and where there was no lack of the replica of the World Cup that Lionel Messi raised in the World Cup in Qatar.
To be part of the Demo Team Argentina, Matthias had to overcome a rigorous technical, physical and didactic-pedagogical selection carried out by the Argentine Association of Ski, Snowboard and Pisteros Socorristas Instructors (ADIDESS).
“I signed up for a pre-selection in 2020, they called me in 2021 for the first training session and I was finally chosen in 2022 to join the team. It was something very exciting and my dad was very proud of my achievement ”, recalled Matthias, who by then his disciple had already surpassed his mentor.
Before becoming a Level 5 instructor (which is the maximum you can aspire to) and wearing the light blue and white shirt at the last ski world championship in Finland, the young man made his homeland at Cerro Catedral; where he dedicated himself to giving individual and group classes for many years. “What I liked the most was teaching at the highest levels,” he recounted. And that was precisely what later allowed me to get a job abroad.
For those reasons of fate, the first time he set foot in a ski center outside of Argentina was in 2012, in Switzerland; the same country where her father established himself as an instructor and changed his life completely. “I worked for six seasons in Saint Moritz until in 2018 I had the opportunity to travel to the center of Park City, in the United States,” she related.
It was the first time that Matthias traveled to that North American country and he felt it as a great achievement since his ultimate goal is to work in Aspen, one of the best places in the world when it comes to snow sports. However, his aspirations were frustrated by the arrival of the pandemic and the closure of borders that returned him to Bariloche.
“In these last three years I have prepared a lot to be among the best and be able to fulfill my dream,” he highlighted. Today, with a curriculum of excellence that very few have in Argentina, he is willing to export his knowledge and take his technique all over the world.
by CEDOC
