TELLURIDE — The Aspen Divas synchronized ski team stands at the top of the manicured slope. Before their first descent for the Telluride World Synchro Championships, the skiers look at each other and repeat “I trust you.”
Captain Serena Albornoz Mazzucco calls out to the team. And in one unified movement, they lift their right ski and then their left and plunge down the hill. They separate into two lines of four skiers and begin weaving between each other. Snow flies from their skis as they mirror each other’s movements.
Coach Russ Kauff stands at the bottom and captures the run on his phone while cheering on his team.
“Ten years from now, when this group of women is running the ski business, they may or may not think hard about how they finish the competition this year,” Kauff said. “But they will remember how they feel about each other and the kind of environment that we create for each other. And if they bring that to the instructors that they train or the athletes that they coach or the schools that they run it’s a big, big win.”
The Aspen Divas are a nonprofit all-female synchronized ski team that formed in 1998. Synchronized skiing at its base level is a group of skiers that move through choreographed routines while skiing downhill, at high speeds, while mirroring each other’s movements.
Kauff said that synchronized skiing is really popular in European and South American countries and it’s especially popular among ski instructors. But in the U.S., the sport has limited appeal.
“Ski instructors are really the only people who care about it,” Kauff said. “It takes a lot of time and effort, especially when you’re already working hard as a ski instructor.”
Ski instructors work their whole career to perfect their craft. They move through a series of certifications and training through organizations, such as the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA), which is the industry standard for ski and snowboard instruction in the United States (other countries have their own versions of this.)
Kauff competed on his college ski race team at Trinity College in Hartford and then later coached ski racing at his alma mater. He started his ski instructing career in 2001 at Okemo ski area in Vermont and then moved to Aspen to teach during peak traffic in December, holidays and spring break.
When COVID hit, Kauff stayed in Aspen, where he now lives full time. He has been involved with the Aspen Divas for the last four seasons. His first two seasons, he coached the development team and the second team, the Diva-ettes. He is now in his second season leading the first team. Kauff is helping what he calls “a new generation of Divas.”
His background is in ski racing and that technical race experience is helping Kauff coach the Aspen Divas in what he called “a rebuilding year.”
“The teams through the last couple of years have been much less experienced, both in synchro and generally in their careers,” Kauff said. “The changes that we’ve made in the way we function as a team are one of the things that differentiates us from what came before. We’re trying to create continuity season after season, so that we have the kind of experience we want together.”
Many of the past Divas have gone on to be part of their home country’s demonstration teams. In the United States, the demonstration team, also known as the PSIA Alpine Team, is made up of the 12 best instructors in the country and meets every four years, or one term, to demonstrate skills to the other countries during the Interski Congress. This supports the idea of lifelong learning within the ski industry and the exchanging of knowledge through synchro demonstrations, lectures and workshops.
Former Aspen Diva Danisa Guardatti represented her home country of Argentina on their last demonstration team and was pre-selected to represent the country again in the upcoming term. The next Congress will meet in Vail in 2027. Guardatti is one of eight people representing Argentina’s demo team. She was on the Aspen Divas starting in 2014 and competed and coached through 2022. She became a mom in 2021, but said when her child became a toddler it became harder for her to find the time to compete.
“You commit a lot to train and then to ski so close to other people in such a high performance skiing level and speed, you really need to trust the person that is right next to you,” Guardatti said.
Guardatti started working at the Aspen Snowmass ski school in 2008 on a J-1 visa. Over the years she held an athlete visa and a professional visa. She recently received an EB-1A green card, which is the “extraordinary ability” category for individuals with “extraordinary talent” in careers like science, arts and athletics.
The current Aspen Divas team is composed of two American athletes (one from Beaver Creek), four Argentines, one Kiwi, one German, and a Spanish athlete. Half of the team has J-1 visas, which permit temporary visits to the U.S. to teach, study or receive training, among other pursuits. The women say visa restrictions have tightened and that the rules of the application process change every year, challenging their ability to compete.
Mazzucco, the team captain, has come from her home country of Argentina to work as a ski instructor in Aspen for the last five years and said she won’t know if her visa is approved for next season until October (The four Aspen Snowmass ski areas typically open lifts around Thanksgiving Day). As part of her renewal application, Mazzucco had to find a sponsor and pay several fees up front. She also had to arrange airfare in advance, not knowing if her visa would be approved.
“So we pay the whole year to different stuff like the sponsorship, the Work & Travel Company, housing… and everything in advance,” said Mazzucco. “And then if they say no, you lose all of that.”
On top of those costs, Mazzucco said, the application process requires two meetings in Buenos Aires, including one at the embassy.
And the worry of being rejected is always there, Mazzucco said.
But it’s worth it.
“After all of that, with our economies, it’s way better to do a season here than anywhere else,” Mazzuco said, explaining how many Argentines return from a few months of seasonal work at U.S. resorts and are able to pay for university or their own apartment.
Under J-1 rules, visa holders must return to their home country within a month of their jobs ending, according to Mazzucco. All four of the women on the team with J-1 visas are students and part of the visa criteria is that they must return to their country at the start of their university’s term.
Twin sisters Clara and Malena Mèndez Casariego overstayed their visa by three weeks, missing the start of their school year in Argentina to compete in the Telluride World Synchro Championships the first week of April. Their work ended March 19, the competition was scheduled April 4-5 and the sisters scheduled their flight home for April 8.
With the unknowns of visas, the turnover of a whole new team and tryouts, the Aspen Divas didn’t begin practicing until the end of January, giving them only a partial season to perfect their three routines — which are called figures in synchronized skiing parlance — for the championships in Telluride.
The Aspen Divas finished in fourth place during this year’s championships. The competition was scored on four runs: one called the “school figure” that every team had to prepare, two that the team choreographed themselves — the Aspen Divas called their own figures “Generations” and “Newton was a Diva” — and a fourth lap that repeated one of the three prepared figures.
The Aspen Divas received the highest score of all of the teams for their fourth lap, in which they performed their “Generations” figure to the cheers of the crowd. “Generations” is an artfully choreographed routine that has the team snaking the width of the run in a single file line as they reach the bottom.
The team counted to three at the bottom of the run, seemingly holding their breath, and met the eyes of each of the judges. As they collectively broke formation, they were grinning ear-to-ear and giving high-fives to the crowd members they passed. The women huddled together hugging, congratulating each other and crying in a mix of celebration for finishing their final lap as a team, and sadness that some of the skiers will not return next winter and that others are unsure how their visa process may unfold.
“Some people say once a diva, always a diva,” Kauff said.