How Colorado’s Copper Mountain Turned The Premier Coaching Location For U.S. Olympic Skiers And Snowboarders

The 99 skiers and snowboarders who make up this 12 months’s 224-member U.S. Olympic group hail from throughout the nation. Some come from the Northeast and Midwest; many are from California.

However the largest contingent comes from Colorado, the place the presence of Copper Mountain, which homes one of many state’s three 22-foot halfpipes and a competition-sized slopestyle course, has served as a coaching hub for a few of the nation’s finest freestyle skiers and snowboarders, like Olympians Purple Gerard and Chris Corning.

The resort’s U.S. Ski Staff Pace Heart and Alpine Tech Heart, in the meantime, has helped Olympians like Mikaela Shiffrin and Ryan Cochran-Siegle sharpen their racing expertise.

Copper Mountain additionally gives what just one different resort—Park Metropolis, Utah—can boast: entry to Woodward high-performance coaching indoor and out of doors venues. Woodward’s indoor trampolines, foam pits and proprietary coaching instruments at its Motion Sports activities Barn enable athletes to dial of their uber-precise spin and flip tips safely earlier than they take them to snow.

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Once they’re able to attempt their runs on the mountain, athletes have entry to a few of the nation’s solely Olympic-regulation superpipes and slopestyle programs at Copper Mountain and Park Metropolis.

Athletes comply with snow across the globe all year long, spending the winters in Colorado or Utah, touring to Saas-Payment, Switzerland, in October and heading right down to New Zealand or Australia in the summertime.

And it’s not simply Individuals who contemplate Colorado and Utah coaching hubs; skiers and snowboarders from Europe and the Southern Hemisphere make the trek yearly to coach at these resorts, as nicely.

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On Thursday, nonetheless, U.S. Ski and Snowboard, the nationwide governing physique (NGB) of ski and snowboard sports activities in america, made the mutually useful relationship an official partnership, asserting that Woodward Copper and Woodward Park Metropolis will function official coaching facilities for U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes by way of January 2025.

The partnership will present U.S. athletes new instruments and venues to progress by way of the subsequent four-year cycle in preparation for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.

“We’re thrilled to associate with Woodward to raise our freeski and snowboard athletes’ coaching,” stated U.S. Ski & Snowboard Freestyle, Freeski and Snowboard Director Jeremy Forster. “Woodward’s services at Copper Mountain and in Park Metropolis will present key year-round coaching for our Professional and Rookie Staff athletes for years to come back.”

The terrain parks at Copper Mountain vary from additional small simple options to additional massive for superior riders and professionals. The resort additionally just lately debuted two airbag coaching zones for elite-level halfpipe and large air athletes, as these disciplines see wild development in competitors.

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This 12 months’s Olympics will, in all probability, see male halfpipe snowboarders touchdown triple corks (Japan’s Ayumu Hirano did it within the Copper superpipe at Dew Tour in December); the primary triple cork by a girl in snowboard large air if Austria’s Anna Gasser can land it in competitors for the primary time; male large air snowboarders throwing round quad corks, as Marcus Kleveland has carried out; and freestyle skiers upping the diploma of their rotations to a mind-boggling 2160, with Alex Corridor touchdown a double 2160 for the primary time in competitors at X Video games Aspen in January.

There are only a few resorts within the U.S. that may accommodate athletes coaching for these sorts of tips. It provides nations like Canada and international locations in Europe a bonus in worldwide competitors, particularly when many countries outdoors the U.S. have state-sponsored coaching facilities and fund their nationwide groups on the federal degree.

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That’s why personal corporations like Copper Mountain have turn out to be so essential to professional athletes’ coaching.

“I’ve seen in recent times different resorts scaling again on their terrain parks or having much less precedence on getting a park open within the early elements of the season, whereas Copper Mountain has been doing the alternative; increasing their parks, opening with a terrain park, and creating options of all kinds for every type of ability ranges,” says Woodward snowboard coach Rob Berlin, an AASI-fully licensed teacher who teaches classes at Copper Mountain.

In Copper’s case, these kinds of high-level parks are a part of their model, particularly with Woodward and the give attention to freestyle development; they match properly with the resort’s different U.S. Ski Staff initiatives, explains Adrienne Saia Isaac, director of selling and communications for the Nationwide Ski Areas Affiliation (NSAA).

Copper has the operational infrastructure to construct and keep these terrain parks, in addition to inhabitants of high-level athletes—skilled and novice—who can efficiently use terrain parks of that magnitude.

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This mannequin works for Copper, and for different ski areas like Mammoth and Aspen Snowmass, however 22-foot superpipes and slopestyle programs don’t essentially match into each ski space’s enterprise mannequin.

However with regards to providing athletes who compete or aspire to compete at a excessive degree a spot to dial of their tips, there are solely a handful of locations within the U.S. they’ll entry these options.

Even Woodward Park Metropolis’s halfpipe—whereas a 22-foot superpipe—isn’t technically an Olympic-sized halfpipe; it’s shorter.

“It takes plenty of sources to construct and keep a superpipe, but it surely additionally takes plenty of expertise,” Noah Schwander, director of Woodward at Copper, informed me. “That expertise is simply shrinking. There’s not very many individuals on the market that may actually do it nicely.”

Snow Park Applied sciences (SPT), the world’s main consulting group for terrain parks, helps keep the superpipe at Copper Mountain. It has constructed greater than 250 competitors programs, together with for X Video games (domestically and overseas), the Burton U.S. Open and Winter Dew Tour.

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Schwander estimates that, on the planet, there are lower than eight individuals who have the ability set to construct and keep a 22-foot halfpipe. “You may’t actually study it from lots of people; it’s a really small commerce,” he stated.

Relying on snow situations and different elements 12 months to 12 months, there are roughly seven 22-foot halfpipes within the U.S.—the 4 Olympic-sized superpipes at Copper, Mammoth Mountain, Snowmass and Buttermilk, in addition to the shorter superpipes at Woodward Park Metropolis and Seven Springs in Pennsylvania.

To take a position the sources in constructing and sustaining options like a 22-foot halfpipe, resorts must see a payout in return—largely, publicity and internet hosting world-class occasions. After spending 11 years in Breckenridge, Dew Tour moved inside Summit County to Copper Mountain for 2020 and 2021.

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Dew Tour vice chairman and basic supervisor Courtney Gresik cited Copper’s expertise internet hosting different world-class occasions just like the U.S. Grand Prix and the USASA Nationals, in addition to its shared dedication to investing within the subsequent era of motion sports activities athletes, as advantages of the transfer.

“We really feel the Dew Tour will tackle new life at Copper, which has lengthy been a most well-liked vacation spot for elite motion sports activities athletes,” Gresik stated on the time.

After his household relocated from Cleveland, Ohio, to Silverthorne, Colorado, to help his budding snowboarding profession, Gerard was fortunate sufficient to name a world-class resort his dwelling mountain in Copper. He’s progressed his slopestyle driving on the resort’s terrain parks, successful a gold medal on the 2018 Pyeongchang Video games and returning to the Olympics this 12 months in Beijing.

Gerard even opened his personal branded hike-to terrain park on the base of Copper Mountain. Purple’s Yard, modeled after his personal rails backyard at dwelling, opened in December 2019. It’s free to entry with a voucher and included in a season cross or day raise ticket.

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Copper Mountain “actually is the Athlete’s Mountain,” Gerard stated throughout Dew Tour in December. “You may come right here any given day in December and January and see a professional snowboarder you’re gonna watch within the Dew Tour.”

“For you to have the ability to expertise the identical place all of the Olympians are literally coaching, there’s not one other sport you possibly can actually try this,” Schwander stated. “It’s fairly distinctive to have the venue open and accessible to anyone, and it’s one thing that you may truly make your manner down by way of there whilst a newbie.”

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“It’s been superb to see Woodward embrace development and coaching areas indoors and on-mountain at each Copper and Woodward Park Metropolis,” stated Shaun White, a five-time Olympian. “I’ve spent plenty of time within the pipes at each locations the previous two seasons preparing for the Olympics.” 

The vast majority of the U.S. Freeski Staff hails from Colorado. Olympian Aaron Blunck, who competes in halfpipe, grew up in Crested Butte and bought began early, as his grandfather ran a ski faculty. His dwelling resort at Crested Butte used to have a halfpipe however not does.

“As with plenty of mountains, they’re dwindling; it’s costly to construct,” Blunck stated at Dew Tour. He factors out that a lot of the Colorado freeski halfpipe athletes—a gaggle that features Alex Ferreira from Aspen, Birk Irving from Winter Park and Hanna Faulhaber from Basalt, all headed to the Beijing Video games with Blunck—have been competing in opposition to each other since they have been 10 to 12 years outdated, coaching on the identical places and arising by way of the game collectively.

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“We’re tremendous lucky to have locations like Copper Mountain that has an awesome halfpipe and we might make our dwelling stomping grounds for halfpipe driving,” Blunck stated. “It’s essentially the most central spot for snowboarding in all of Colorado in my eyes. We have been all very lucky to stay shut by and rip over right here.”

And whereas Copper Mountain and Woodward are preeminent coaching places for essentially the most elite athletes, the time period “Athlete’s Mountain” actually encompasses the entire spectrum of snowboarding and snowboarding, from somebody’s first time on snow to an Olympian. The resort is constructed in order that athletes can progress their expertise from newbie to intermediate to superior all on one mountain.

“That’s the larger focus of what Woodward is as an entire is the development, assembly the subsequent era, pushing the game as an entire and pushing the youngsters to be the long run,” Schwander stated. “It’s no secret the ski trade has been flat for 30 years; it’s not shrinking but it surely’s not rising, both.”

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Staff Burton youth slopestyle rider Brian Rice, 17, represents the subsequent era of professional snowboarding. He calls Copper Mountain dwelling as he units his sights on qualifying for the 2016 Winter Olympics, coaching alongside present Olympians in slopestyle Gerard and Chris Corning.

Woodward Copper and Copper Mountain are additionally coaching grounds for Staff Summit, a youth growth group that provides coaching alternatives for younger alpine skiers, freestyle skiers and snowboarders, with the nation’s largest snowboard program.

With Adaptive Motion Sports activities, based in 2005 by Daniel Gale and his associate, three-time Paralympic snowboarder Amy Purdy, Copper Mountain has additionally turn out to be the house base for adaptive riders to progress.

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In his new autobiography Pushed to Journey, Paralympic snowboarder Mike Schultz, who will compete within the Beijing Paralympics in March, writes about how assembly Gale and Purdy modified his profession when he transitioned from motocross and snowmobile racing to adaptive snowboarding after a snowmobile accident led to the amputation of his left leg above the knee.

Staff Burton adaptive snowboarder Kiana Clay, who misplaced use of her dominant arm in an accident, additionally took up the game professionally after her accident and lives and trains close to Copper Mountain. She met Schultz by way of motocross and he informed her to succeed in out to Gale and Purdy with Adaptive Motion Sports activities.

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The group was on the bottom at Copper Mountain in December supporting Clay at Dew Tour, the place she took first place within the girls’s adaptive snowboard banked slalom closing.

From newcomers to Olympians and Paralympians, Copper Mountain’s give attention to development—on the middle of its $100 million mountain expertise renovation and enlargement—has allowed it to face out as the popular coaching hub amongst an already small group of premier U.S. resorts that may accommodate athletes from the bottom to highest degree of ability.

“Our partnership with U.S. Ski & Snowboard is stronger than ever and we’re proud to supply much more world-class coaching alternatives for his or her athletes,” stated Dustin Lyman, president and basic supervisor of Copper Mountain. “For many years, we’ve regarded ahead to internet hosting U.S. Staff athletes for coaching and competitors every season. It’s our privilege to increase this partnership, and the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Staff is an enormous purpose why we’re thought-about the Athlete’s Mountain.”