TRAINING AND COMPETITION

ON SNOW DAYS PER YEAR:

Days per year on snow will range between 130 - 150+ days and is individualized based on the ski racer. Ski racers are encouraged to ski as often as possible during the ski season and to ski with friends and family while balancing rest, travel, school/work and recovery needs. 

Ski racers complete 50 to 70+ off-season training days on snow per year dependent on individual and phase of Olympic quadrennial. Late spring and early summer are perfect opportunities to refine technical skiing skills. Late summer and fall are great time periods to work on transferring technical skiing skills into tactical environments. 

ON SNOW VOLUME RECOMMENDATIONS:

• Minimum five days per week and an additional day as required throughout the ski season. 
• Providing a quality sport experience for the ski racer is of utmost importance. All activities should provide the appropriate level of challenge while maintaining an element of fun. 
• Competition environments, venues and course sets, should promote racing allowing ski racers to push their limits while carving on the outside ski and skiing as fast as possible from start to finish. 
• Ski racers are encouraged to develop their inspection skills during training and competition.
• Ski racers are encouraged to practice their starts including the use of team event and ski cross start gates. Race to the first gate! 
• The ski area is the playground ensure ski racers have time on-snow to free ski, ski for the soul.

COMPETITION SPECIFIC TRAINING AND COMPETITION:

COURSE SETS INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING EVENTS AND ARE DEPENDENT ON THE INDIVIDUAL SKI RACERS PERFORMANCE PLAN:

• Giant Slalom
• Slalom
• Super Giant Slalom
• Downhill
• Alpine Combined
• Parallel Slalom and Giant Slalom
• Dual Formats/Team Event
• Ski Cross courses 

SPEED ELEMENTS TRAINING; SKI ON LONGER SKIS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR TO PRACTICE:

• Glide turns
• Jump progressions
• Movement over terrain with speed

COMPETITION STARTS AND TYPES:

Ski racers compete at the national championships, internationally on the World Cup, World Championships, World Cup Finals and Olympic Winter Games. 

In the Race to Win stage, the number of competition starts is dependent on the individual performance plan for each ski racer and ranges between 44 to 66+ days of competition. 

Set all competition courses according to the FIS ICR.