Purpose Beyond the Podium

INSPIRE

Purpose Beyond the Podium

At the 2025 World Pro Ski Tour season opener in Aspen, Mazda Stories meets two pro skiers who not only personify Mazda’s signature challenger spirit, but also play a vital role in their greater community

A true spirit of community was vibrant at this year’s 2025 World Pro Ski Tour (WPST) season opener in Aspen, Colorado. Against a backdrop of fierce tooth-and-nail racing, scenes of joy and camaraderie played out as the world’s best skiers ascended the mountain together through the sheer fun of ski racing, and a shared love for their sport.

This exhilarating event brings a formidable line-up of Olympians, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champions, and World Cup competitors from more than a dozen countries to Aspen Mountain for two days of dual super slalom races—a racing format that distinguishes the WPST from other major alpine ski competitions. Each challenge requires remarkable stamina and agility, a positive mindset, and a certain challenger spirit.

It’s no surprise, then, that Mazda is the official automotive partner of the WPST and directly supports some of the Tour’s most exciting athletes, including 70 athletes across 15 nationalities. This also involves backing a steadfast, growing team of female ski racers on the Sports Insurance Team, including the Canadian four-time Olympian and former World Cup competitor Erin Mielzynski, and WPST champion and former NCAA racer, Tuva Norbye from Norway.

Both are leaders of the WPST and role models in the greater ski community, known for challenging conventions in their sport and representing their team with tenacious attitudes and joyful spirits.

“You also put in the effort for the whole team, not just for yourself.”

Tuva Norbye

Mazda Stories: What inspired each of you to pursue ski racing?

Tuva Norbye: My mom was a ski racer, and she put me and my two sisters on skis when we were really young. I have so many memories skiing in the woods and different areas around Norway. I feel like I’ve been a ski racer my whole life, but I didn’t start racing until I was nine.

Erin Mielzynski: I’ve wanted to race since I was five. When I finished high school, I made the national team, and it was exciting to race in Europe for the first time, and then I started having success. What kept me going for so long is that I just love the feeling of being on skis. I love the power that I feel from it.

MS: How do you embody a challenger spirit on and off the course?

TN: As a ski racer, you experience failure most of the time when you race, because there’s only one winner. You really must be solid in who you are to survive in a competitive environment like that. And coming here, it’s a pretty vulnerable position to put yourself in, because you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. I do it because I know it gives me so much positivity, coming here and being a part of this community.

EM: I think what you said, Tuva, is cool. I think that sport is very vulnerable. It exposes everything. It shows your best side and your absolute worst side, and so through sport is the perfect way to challenge your fears. My sport allows me to challenge those parts of myself and to build my spirit.

“I just love the feeling of being on skis. I love the power that I feel from it.”

Erin Mielzynski

“It shows you rivalry in a way that is uplifting.”

Erin Mielzynski

MS: With skiing being somewhat of an independent sport, how have you been able to find and establish community throughout your careers?

TN: In college, you don’t just race for yourself, you race to get points for your school. It’s a different mentality and a different type of pressure. When you’re skiing for a team, you know that other people are putting in their efforts to do well for you, and you also put in the effort for the whole team, not just for yourself. It’s a fun environment to be a part of.

EM: On our Canadian team, we usually raced as independents. We were a team, but you raced independently, and often the girls that you’re sleeping in the same room with are your biggest competition, which can be hard. But I think it’s a really positive thing, because it shows you rivalry in a way that is uplifting—when you can compete, but you leave it on the hill. And you also learn that even if it was your failure that day, you have to put it aside to celebrate someone else’s success. Those are the healthiest relationships I’ve had with teammates.

MS: How would you describe the team spirit of the Sports Insurance Team?

EM: There are four of us, and we’re an all-female team. I think that’s really important to support, and for young girls to see, because if you can see it, you can learn to be it. Within the team, we all have different backgrounds, we’re different ages, we’re from different places, and then we come together after months apart, and it’s like a reunion. We’re this full-on, great team.

TN: Yeah, this team is like our little race family. We support each other regardless of who we’re facing, and even when we’re facing each other—like, I always want to beat Erin, but I’m happy if she wins too, because that means that the Sports Insurance team is moving up.

“We’re different ages, we’re from different places, and then we come together.”

Tuva Norbye

MS: How does this team come together and work to uplift one another?

EM: When we come together here, I think Tuva said it well, it goes beyond community and becomes a ski family. We’re all very independent when we’re not together. The biggest thing is that we support each other, and I think it’s so special, as a woman, to uplift another woman in sport. That’s what the community is, and that’s what supporting us allows us to do. Without it, a lot of us couldn’t be here.

TN: I agree. I don’t know if I would still be on the Tour if it wasn’t for this Sports Insurance Team and Mazda’s support. It’s one of the big pulls that makes me want to keep doing it.


Tuva’s Mazda CX-50 Hybrid

For Norbye, who used to live and coach in Aspen, the alpine city and its surrounding valley will always be a slice of home. Returning for the 2025 WPST, Norbye took a breather from the slopes to drive down memory lane. She explored her favorite roads near Aspen in the new Mazda CX-50 Hybrid, enjoying the Mazda intelligent Drive Select (Mi-Drive) technology, combined with Mazda’s signature i-ACTIV AWD system and the Active Driving Display (Head Up Display). On the slopes or the roads, Norbye knows refined performance when she sees it; and the Mazda CX-50 Hybrid is no different.


MS: What does the support from Mazda mean to you?

TN: It’s cool to know that someone as big as Mazda is willing to come in and sponsor the Tour and also willing to sponsor the girls, to sponsor us.

EM: That’s the perfect way to say it. It wouldn’t be possible without Mazda, for our little team here, but also for the Tour as a whole. What they’re giving is that love for sport to progress, and giving hope, not just for really intense ski racing that you might usually see sponsors joining but joining this fun community that does it for the love of sport.

MS: What qualities do you two admire about each other, whether as ski racers, team members, or individually?

TN: One thing I admire in Erin is that she’s very much a perfectionist. I could use a little more of that, and I think Erin could use a little less of it sometimes. But also, Erin has more experience from racing at a higher level than the other girls, and she’s very willing to share her knowledge and experience with us. That’s huge. It’s something that we all appreciate a lot.

EM: Thank you. I think we are the yin to each other’s yang, because we’re very different, but we learn from each other and rely on each other for a lot of different things. Also, I really look up to you for focusing on what’s important and letting other things go, and I think it’s great how confident you can be regardless of the circumstance. That sets you apart and keeps you growing.


Words Jacqueline Reynolds / Images Emily Sierra