National teams begin their return to snow
Even though it’s still the middle of beach season here in the Northern Hemisphere, that doesn’t stop national teams from around the globe seeking out snow and getting some precious early-season training time in before winter returns.
The French men and women have been hard at work on home snow in Les Deux Alpes. The high elevation of the glacier — about 12,000 feet — provides ample training opportunities for teams from across the globe as the American Men’s Europa Cup group was also on the French glacier for some gate training.
For the Italians, time has been split between training on the Stelvio glacier in Italy and also sending elements of their team to train in Les Deux Alpes alongside the French.
The Italian women’s speed group will be in Les Deux Alpes for ten days and the men’s technical group has already been training in Stelvio. The men’s Europa Cup group will also be enjoying ten days on snow at Stelvio and Les Deux Alpes in the coming week.
The American speed women have also returned to on-snow training with a camp in Mammoth Mountain, Calif. An impressive winter of snowfall has provided for unusually good conditions for this time of year for much of the West, allowing for high-quality training opportunities.
The Norwegian men’s team has opted to not send some of their slalom skiers to the traditional September camp in Chile, according to Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
Jonathan Nordbotten, Leif Kristian Haugen, and Sebastian Foss Solevag have opted to instead lengthen their August camp in New Zealand in order to have a less stressful travel schedule and higher quality training during their prep period.
The Norwegian team will meet on snow for the first time on August 1 at the Folgefonn Summer Ski Center in Oslo.
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