U.S. Ski Team Speed Center at Copper Mountain Opens for Training

Despite the fact that Mother Nature has been quite moody this fall, Colorado’s Copper Mountain Resort snowmaking team has been working around the clock preparing for the highly anticipated opening of the U.S. Ski Team Speed Center. When fully operational, it is the only full-length downhill training facility open anywhere in the world this time of year.

After firing up the HKD guns on Oct. 3, Copper’s mountain operations crew has picked up the pace to prep the slope for training by the U.S. Ski Team. As of Nov. 4, the Speed Center is open for training on the top portion of the trail Andy’s Encore. The full venue opened on Nov. 11.

U.S. Ski Team members expected to train on the Speed Center at Copper Mountain include Olympic gold medalists Lindsey Vonn (Vail, CO), Mikaela Shiffrin (Eagle-Vail, CO), Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley, CA) and American Downhillers Steven Nyman (Sundance, UT), Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, NY) and Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley, CA), their nearly 50 teammates, and national teams from around the world.

Now in its seventh year of operation, the world-class training venue has helped propel U.S. Ski Team athletes to early season Audi FIS Ski World Cup dominance since inception.

SPEED CENTER FACTS
Vertical drop: 2,300 feet?
Length: 2 miles?
Max speed: 80 mph?
Disciplines: slalom, giant slalom, super G, downhill, alpine combined