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Alexei has been to New zealand for the past two winters and plans to return. He has great teaching methods that suits all levels of skier. We formed club Alexei last winter - each day Alexei is on the mountain he sets aside time for a lunch time session for the club members (check out the fees and be one of the 20 people in this limited club. Alexei is available for private lessons, it does pay to book prior to comimg to the mountain. He has a fun approach to teaching and makes you feel a champion.
A little about Alexei Sotskov
The coach who helped develop Gunstock Nordic and the Vermont Academy into national powerhouses has joined the University of Maine at Presque Isle as its ski coach. Alexei Sotskov will lead the team as it joins the ranks of Division I NCAA schools in 2009-2010.
Presque Isle athletes have won seven national championships in four years in the U.S. Collegiate Ski Association.
Sotskov’s former athletes include U.S. Ski Team member Kris Freeman, Carl Van Loan and Jed Hinkley (U.S. Nordic Combined Team and former World Nordic Combined Junior Champions), and Kate Newick, a standout for Middlebury Ski Team. Sotskov has also had 14 athletes win Junior Olympic titles.
“Presque Isle offers one of the top Nordic venues in the world, one of the longest snow seasons in the country and a community that embraces the benefits of the Nordic skiing lifestyle,” President Don Zillman said. “We thank coaches Kris Cheney Seymour and Petr Jakl for advancing our fledgling program at UMPI. They set the stage for Coach Sotskov to bring the program to competitive excellence at the highest level of NCAA competition.”
Sotskov was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, and has spent his entire career coaching and mentoring Nordic skiers. He has a wealth of international coaching experience, having served as a ski and athletic coach for the Russian National Nordic Combined Team, and as the head Nordic Combined coach at the School of Superior Athletic Performance in Russia. During the summer of 2008, he coached the New Zealand National Nordic team, and one of the athletes qualified for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Sotskov moved to the United States in 1992 to coach for the Gunstock Nordic Association. Three of the racers he trained there competed in the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. In 2002, he joined Vermont Academy as Nordic Coach and Director of Sports on Snow. While there, his athletes won four out of six New England Preparatory School Athletic Council titles and five Lakes Region championships. Most recently, Sotskov served as the Assistant Athletic Director and On-Snow Sports Coordinator at Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, New Hampshire.
Sotskov has a bachelor’s degree in physical education/athletics from the State Institute of Physical Culture and Sport named after P.F. Lesgaft in Russia. He and his wife Victoria Vinidiktova will be relocating to northern Maine. They have a son, Pavel, who is a member of the Dartmouth College varsity Nordic team. Their son will graduate this summer and join the Maine Winter Sports Center program as a Nordic skier.
Student athletes looking for more information about the University of Maine at Presque Isle Ski Program should contact Alexei Sotskov at (603) 630-5486 or asotskov60@gmail.com.
