ALPINE SKI. Due to the lack of snow in Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe, several World Cup teams are heading to North America for training earlier than planned. The U.S. men’s and women’s teams have been training in Vail, Colorado for the past week, where conditions are cold and snowy with top to bottom training conditions, including a full giant slalom course. Vail Mountain is not open to the public yet for skiing but the new, multi-million dollar Golden Peak training facility opened last week and in the next week will host several other national World Cup teams for GS and slalom training, including the Canadian and Japanese men’s teams ,the Slovenian, Swedish, Swiss and Russian women’s teams and the men’s and women’s teams from Germany, Austria, Italy and Finland.

The Norwegian men also rolled into Vail earlier than planned on Tuesday, although without most of their equipment, as it was being held in customs in the Denver airport. Thus, Aksel Lund Svindal, who confirmed that “there is no snow” in Scandinavia, ended up training with the U.S. women’s team.

“I’m really grateful today,” Svindal said Tuesday before he and Julia Mancuso left the hill for a post-training lunch. “All of our stuff is stuck in customs, so we can’t really train unless someone lets us train with them. Conditions are really good. It’s nice to find some snow.”

Svindal was expecting his equipment to arrive on Wednesday.

Copper Mountain and Loveland ski areas in Colorado (both of which feature base areas that sit at just above 3,000 meters) are also hosting World Cup teams for training before the next World Cup events: the women race GS and slalom in Aspen, Colo. and the men downhill and super G in Lake Louise, Alberta on 26-27 Nov.

Meanwhile, the Canadians have also been training in Alberta. The women are at Nakiska this week while other Europeans are wrapping up training in Europe before heading to North America. Some teams have taken it indoors. The Swiss women’s tech team has been training in Wittenburg, Germany, while the Swiss women’s speed team will go to Miami for sun and conditioning before heading to Colorado. Glacier training has stretched on longer than usual for some teams. Lara Gut has been training on the Pitztal Glacier, the Finnish women and Austrian men have been training on the Moelltal glacier. The Austrian and French women, plus some of the Austrian men’s tech team and Swedish women’s team have been on Stubai. The Finnish men have been training on Switzerland’s Diavolezza. The Slovenian women and Croatian men have been training at Hintertux and the Italian men’s tech team has been splitting its time back home between Solda and Madesimo.

In addition to snow accumulating in Colorado and Canada, Saas Fee has been getting snow, as have the mountains of Sierra Nevada and Andorra.

FISalpine.com
Wednesday 9 November 2011

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