Sheer amazement
Whether it involves slopes or rinks, multiple times we’re left in a state of shock and wondering “How did that athlete do that?”
That’s the joy of the Winter Olympics: You never know what to expect. With about a month to go until the Sochi Olympics begin, the anticipation already has started.
But have you ever wondered what it takes to prepare for what you see on TV or how much work goes into it?
If you have that curiosity, you are in luck
Colorado’s Copper Mountain opened the first Olympic-sized halfpipe in North America last November. At 22 feet, it’s the same height as the superpipe you will see at the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. The main vein is 500 feet long and 62 feet wide, which gives athletes the maximum speed to boost an average of 15 feet in the air.
Since Copper Mountain is now the only place in the Western Hemisphere with a pipe this size, athletes now have a place to train.
According to Colorado Snow, visitors can watch private training sessions and possibly catch a glimpse of some of the best athletes in the world in action. Training takes place between 8 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. through Jan. 30.
For the first time, people can see up-close what goes into halfpipe winter sports. They can see how athletes react to crashes and mishaps and celebrate success when they pull off the one trick they want to stick.
Summit County, CO is winter olympic training HQ
Regardless if you stay at Copper Mountain, Breckenridge don’t miss this chance to see future Olympians put the finishing touches on what they hope to achieve in Sochi.
It’s fitting that Copper Mountain opened the first superpipe in the U.S. since halfpipe skiing is making its debut in the Olympics this year.
With that in mind, here are some of the athletes you should keep an eye on, and perhaps even see practice before they leave for Russia. They recently competed in Breckenridge at the first stop of the Dew Tour iON Mountain Championships.
Skiers and snowboarders on a roll…
Halfpipe skier Maddie Bowman, as we speak, is on fire. Coming off her win at the Winter X Games in Aspen last year, she won that first stop of the Mountain Championships. What sets the South Lake Tahoe 20-year-old apart from the rest of the field is the 900s she throws into her runs.
Brita Sigourney, another halfpipe athlete, had a memorable 2012 for multiple reasons. The Tahoe native was the first woman to land an 1800 and won the bronze at the X Games. Her year then took a turn for the worse when she tore her anterior cruciate ligament at the European X Games. The injury put her future in doubt, but Sigourney put that talk to bed with her third-place finish on the Dew Tour.
David Wise is known as the Golden Boy of American halfpipe skiing. He’s won major event after major event as he heads to the Olympics, where he projects to win the first gold medal. Wise is doing his part to take the sport from a fringe activity to an Olympic sport. As mentioned above, the typical athlete will rise 15 feet off the halfpipe. Wise has gotten upwards of 20 feet.
There is no doubt the Olympics give us the chance to see things we’ve never seen. But now you have the chance to see it in person.