Kiwi winter athletes train with world’s best

For immediate release
Friday August 27, 2010

Kiwi winter athletes train with world’s best

New Zealand’s future winter Olympians have been rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s best athletes during training at Cardrona Alpine Resort.

New training runs at the ski area have attracted a number of top international ski-racing teams to set up camp here during the Southern Hemisphere winter.

Cardrona Sales and Marketing Manager Nadia Ellis says the kiwis are lapping up the opportunity to train with these Olympic medal-winning athletes from the United States, Germany, Norway and Russia, to name a few countries.

“During the past week our High Performance Centre (HPC) women’s team have had training sessions with many of the ski-racing medal winners from the Vancouver Winter Olympics,” she says.

“These sessions have helped our HPC teams produce some fantastic results from our ski race team this season. Lucie Tait-Jamieson has chalked up wins at the first three FIS events of the New Zealand season.

“Fellow team member Lavinia Chrystal won the Australian National Champs in both Giant Slalom (GS) and Slalom (SL). Taylor Smith also recorded her first two ever podium finishes with second place at the Cardrona and Treble Cone events.”

Ms Ellis says for the first time in New Zealand it’s possible for teams to test how well skis glide on the flat and then train on World Cup-length Slalom and GS courses on the steep pitches in Cardrona’s Powderkeg Valley.

“This is why the German national team, which won several Olympic Gold Medals in ski-racing in Vancouver, chose to make Cardrona its base.”

Some of the international athletes training now at Cardrona:

Germany:             Viktoria Rebensburg - Gold GS Vancouver

                        Maria Riesch - Gold super combined and slalom

USA:                        Julia Mancuso - 2 Silver in Vancouver

USA Men:             Bode Miller - Gold Super combined, Silver SG and Bronze Downhill.

                        Ted Ligety and other US Mens Team Members

Norway:            Aksel Lund Svindal – 3 medals at Vancouver, Gold SG, Silver Downhill, and Bronze in Giant Slalom

                        Kjetil Jansrud – Silver medal GS Vancouver

Russian Women: Russia is the next host Nation for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games (in Sochi)

For further information, snow reports and web cams, visit www.cardrona.com

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