Women's Alpine Team full-steam in NZ

CORONET PEAK, New Zealand  – Nearly halfway through a two-and-a-half week on-snow camp at Coronet Peak, U.S. Alpine Women’s Ski Team coaches are reporting solid early results from a team in outstanding physical condition. This includes two-time overall World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn, defending Olympic gold medalist Julia Mancuso  and an injury-free Resi Stiegler, who for the first time in two seasons, will be able to train at full speed for an entire summer.

“Everything is going incredibly well,” Technical Head Coach Trevor Wagner said. “We had some pretty soft snow for the first few days which is good for the back to basics things we needed to do, but now we’ve moved onto injection. It’s not nasty, nasty hard snow yet, but it will be and that’s a good thing.”

CORONET PEAK, New Zealand  – Nearly halfway through a two-and-a-half week on-snow camp at Coronet Peak, U.S. Alpine Women’s Ski Team coaches are reporting solid early results from a team in outstanding physical condition. This includes two-time overall World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn, defending Olympic gold medalist Julia Mancuso  and an injury-free Resi Stiegler, who for the first time in two seasons, will be able to train at full speed for an entire summer.

“Everything is going incredibly well,” Technical Head Coach Trevor Wagner said. “We had some pretty soft snow for the first few days which is good for the back to basics things we needed to do, but now we’ve moved onto injection. It’s not nasty, nasty hard snow yet, but it will be and that’s a good thing.”

But even more important than the snow conditions is the physical condition of the athletes, who fully committed to their individually built dry land programs during the spring and early summer.

“Everyone is in great shape, healthy and has extremely high energy for skiing right now,” Wagner said. “We’ve done some pretty long days already and they’re up and set to go early each morning. Each year the girls come into this camp in better shape than they were last year. They’re also so much more eager to ski. A lot of that has to do with maturity, but it also has to do with how much they want to succeed.”

“I feel better on snow than I have in probably five years,” said Mancuso, who suffered from intermittent back problems last season. “You never really know how it’s going to be until you get on snow and this feels great. All that chiropractic work really paid off.”

Wagner and Head Coach Jim Tracy credit the work athletes put into their program and also their commitment to moving to Park City, Utah, to train at the newly opened Center of Excellence under the guidance of Team Strength and Conditioning Trainer Ernie Rimer.

Prior to heading to Austria for a training block, Vonn spent two-weeks in the Center of Excellence, while Rimer collaborated with Mancuso’s personal trainer in Hawaii to create a program centered on rebuilding her strength and endurance. Other athletes, including Kaylin Richardson (Edina, MN), Hailey Duke (Boise, ID), Chelsea Marshall (Pittsfield, VT and Leanne Smith (North Conway, NH) made Park City their early season base camp before flying to New Zealand.

“As important as it is to run gates and dial in equipment down here, it’s even more important that the team be strong, even this early,” said Wagner. “Ernie did a great job tapering their programs so that they came into this camp with high energy and we’re already seeing that translate into their skiing.”

“It’s mainly a tech camp as most of the girls have not been in ski boots, let alone on snow as a group since U.S. Championships,” Tracy said. “They’ll do basic fundamental reviews, including drills with brush gates. The last portion of the camp will move into sections of normal gates and maybe a day or two of short super G if the weather conditions are good.”

Even now, the team is planning around February Olympics, which greatly compacts the World Cup season for the technical disciplines of slalom and giant slalom. 

“It’s an Olympic year and the No. 1 goal for everyone is to make the Olympic Team, but there’s a little bit more to it than that, especially for the slalom and GS skiers. Our last technical races of the year are at the end of January. So if you don’t make the Olympics, you don’t make World Cup Finals. We’ve got to have everyone firing by Soelden, but definitely on it by Levi and Aspen,” Wagner said.

The New Zealand camp wraps up Aug. 17 with a few weeks off before moving to Chile for a heavier focus on speed disciplines of downhill and super G. The Audi FIS Alpine World Cup season opens Oct. 24 in Soelden, Austria, with the traditional giant slalom on the Retttenbach Glacier.

The only chance for U.S. fans to see the future women’s Olympic Alpine Team compete on home soil is set for Thanksgiving Weekend with the Aspen Winternational in Aspen, Colo., and the final selection events for the 2010 Winter Olympic Team taking place Jan. 24 in Cortina, Italy.