The U.S. men’s and women’s alpine skiing teams held an offseason training camp in Park City last week.
During the week-long camp, some of the world’s best skiers partook in offseason testing, workouts at the team’s Center of Excellence and team-building activities across town.
It was the first time the teams combined for an offseason camp, led by U.S. Ski and Snowboard Alpine Athletic Development Manager Michael Rheese, who joined the team 10 months ago. Hailing from Penola, Australia, it was also Rheese’s first time running an offseason camp of this sort.
“There was a little bit of everything,” Rheese said. “We wanted to create an environment where they could go and give their all, and if they struggled and looked a little bit silly, that was absolutely perfect.”
Rheese and his team put the skiers in positions that challenged them to work on various skills in new environments. Outside of workouts at the Center of Excellence, the teams did activities like volleyball, hockey and hiking.
By combining the camp and having so many skiers together, Rheese said he hopes the teams know they can count on one another during the season and that they’ll know how to handle competing against each other for some of the sport’s grandest prizes.
“It is a very individual sport, barring a couple of occasions,” Rheese said. “I think that getting comfortable competing with each other in events that aren’t just related to skiing, then hopefully helps them get even more comfortable competing with each other when they do ski.”
While the ski team looked into various places to hold the camp, they thought it would be good to hold it in Park City with the Center of Excellence in their backyard. Rheese and women’s alpine ski team veteran Keely Cashman said it’s often helpful for younger skiers on the teams to see how the veterans approach training in the gym, hence why many choose to live in town.
“With us having a lot of fresh new faces, it was just a really good year to get everyone in at sort of our hub,” Rheese said. “Occasionally, we might go to a different location if we have different goals or objectives, but this year was really successful here in Park City.”
Rheese said the tech teams are a little past the halfway point in their offseason, while the speed teams are at it. He is confident in their progress at this point in the summer and feels they’re setting up for another strong season. Last year, the women’s teams secured the Nations Cup, given to the country with the most points secured across women’s alpine World Cup races.
“I think the whole team is just on a high from last season,” Cashman said. “I think everyone’s very excited and feeling pretty confident going into next season.”
Cashman said her speed team won’t try to find snow to train on across the world until mid-August. She will train mostly at the gym in her new home of Montana until then; she lived in Park City the last five summers.
“It’s super fun when you have a good group out there and fun people that you want to hang out with,” Cashman said. “But as everyone gets older, we lose that a little bit. … I’m trying to encourage the younger athletes to live in Park City because when you make the national team and realize the amount of work, time and energy that needs to be put in in the gym, I think being in Park City is the most motivating thing. Seeing everyone and how hard they’re working, and being surrounded by people that are doing the same thing as you is always a good thing.”
The World Cup tech season will begin with the Soelden, Austria, World Cup on Oct. 24-25, and the speed season with the Copper Mountain, Colorado, men’s World Cup on Nov. 28-29.