MAMMOTH LAKES, CA (May 9) – Women's speed Head Coach Chip White and the Mammoth Mountain Race Department have constructed terrain mimicking World Cup race hills for specialized training at the California resort. World Cup athletes including Stacey Cook (Mammoth Mountain, CA), Leanne Smith (North Conway, NH) and Laurenne Ross (Bend, OR) have been training on a "bumpy traverse" similar to what they saw at the 2012 Audi FIS Alpine World Cup Finals in Schladming, Austria, which will host the 2013 World Ski Championships next February. For a second straight spring, U.S. women are also utilizing the Mammoth camp to work on specific form exercises with Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) Team Captain Mike Rogan.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Mammoth Mountain has made their resort available to the U.S. Ski Team starting each morning at 6 a.m. PT for two and a half hours of private training before opening to the public at 8:30 a.m. PT.
- Among the top alpine athletes are Stacey Cook (Mammoth Mountain, CA), Leanne Smith (North Conway, NH), Laurenne Ross (Bend, OR), Julia Ford (Plymouth, NH) and Mikaela Shiffrin (Eagle-Vail, CO).
- Speed Head Coach Chip White and the Mammoth Mountain Race Department have built specialized terrain to mimic World Cup venues like Schladming, Austria – home of the 2013 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.
- PSIA Team Captain Mike Rogan returned to the Mammoth Camp for the second straight year to work with athletes on body form and warm-up routines.
- The weeklong camp is designed to allow each athlete to work on specific needs before getting into high volume on-snow training later in the preparation period.
QUOTES
Stacey Cook
It has been getting really cold at night, so we've had full-on World Cup conditions right from the start of camp. Mammoth always has great snow this time of year and even though they don't have the base they normally do, what is here is ideal for what we need to accomplish.
The traverse Chip [White] built is super bumpy and a lot like what we saw at Schladming during the World Cup Finals. It's also like the downhill traverses in Bansko [Bulgaria] and Garmisch [Germany] as well. We see a lot of right footed traverses on the women's World Cup.
It's also been great to have Mike [Rogan] back with us this spring. I think we all benefited from his perspective last year and now he's like a member of the team. He can see things in our technique that help compliment what our coaches see. It's a huge gain for us to have him here.
Chip White, Speed Head Coach
It took a lot of work to get the slopes to this point, but the crew at Mammoth has been incredibly energetic and supportive in helping us produce terrain to specifically help our team build skills in areas where we need more work.
The World Championships venue in Schladming has a particularly nasty traverse and so do a few other World Cup venues we race on each season. We noticed our athletes losing time on those sections and we want to correct that.
From the bumpy traverse to back-to-basics training with Mike [Rogan] to working on jumping, there's a lot going on, but having our own private training space each morning allows for you to get a lot done.
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