Site search
sponsored by
Home
News
ENLARGE
Quantum Sports Club skier Leah Canfield carves into a turn Friday while training with her team at Arapahoe Basin.
|
ENLARGE
|
Summit Daily/Mark Fox Taggart Spenst, skiing for Team Summit, launches over a berm while training at Copper Mountain on Friday. The local ski clubs are already getting valuable time on snow in preparation for the upcoming season.
|
SUMMIT COUNTY - Now that a few local chairlifts are up and running for the season, members of Summit County's ski clubs have gotten back to doing what they do best - making turns.
Team Summit and Quantum Sports Club (QSC), both of which have been busy with dryland training for several weeks, recently took to the slopes in preparation for the upcoming race season.
"This is probably the most critical time of year for training and building endurance," Team Summit's Taggart Spenst said while skiing at Copper Mountain on Friday. "As for racing, it's not as important. Right now, I'm focusing on the quantity of my runs instead of the quality."
Not only is October a key month for ski training, it's also a good time for teaching, according to QSC head coach John Leffler, whose team has been free skiing at A-Basin for more than a week.
"The athletes are very aware of their bodies right now because they've been doing so much conditioning," Leffler said. "It's actually the best time to learn because their body awareness is so much higher during this transition time than it is at any other time of year."
One of Team Summit's focal points for the early season is returning to fundamentals.
"We're working on basic stuff like balance and stance," Team Summit assistant coach Doug Elsey said. "We sort of started over from the beginning and slowly progressed toward gates and racing. ... It's also important to get a lot of mileage. The lift ride is only four minutes long, so we can ski the legs off these kids in the early season."
"The turnaround is insane here," Spenst said, referring to Copper's Excelerator chair. "You can get close to 25 runs in a day."
Unlike some of Team Summit's elders, who have already done some preliminary gate training, QSC will hold off until Wednesday.
"We like the athletes to have a certain number of days of conditioning and on-snow time before we expose them to gate training," Leffler said. "But on the same token, you have to take it when you can get, especially this time of year."
A-Basin is only a temporary home for Leffler and his crew, which will relocate to Breckenridge once it opens.
Although Team Summit doesn't have to share terrain with the general public like its counterparts at the Basin, it is just one of several groups currently using Copperopolis as a training ground.
Ski teams from Aspen, Steamboat, Park City, Utah, and Ontario, Canada, were among the visitors to Copper over the weekend.
Team Summit and Quantum Sports Club (QSC), both of which have been busy with dryland training for several weeks, recently took to the slopes in preparation for the upcoming race season.
"This is probably the most critical time of year for training and building endurance," Team Summit's Taggart Spenst said while skiing at Copper Mountain on Friday. "As for racing, it's not as important. Right now, I'm focusing on the quantity of my runs instead of the quality."
Not only is October a key month for ski training, it's also a good time for teaching, according to QSC head coach John Leffler, whose team has been free skiing at A-Basin for more than a week.
"The athletes are very aware of their bodies right now because they've been doing so much conditioning," Leffler said. "It's actually the best time to learn because their body awareness is so much higher during this transition time than it is at any other time of year."
One of Team Summit's focal points for the early season is returning to fundamentals.
"We're working on basic stuff like balance and stance," Team Summit assistant coach Doug Elsey said. "We sort of started over from the beginning and slowly progressed toward gates and racing. ... It's also important to get a lot of mileage. The lift ride is only four minutes long, so we can ski the legs off these kids in the early season."
"The turnaround is insane here," Spenst said, referring to Copper's Excelerator chair. "You can get close to 25 runs in a day."
Unlike some of Team Summit's elders, who have already done some preliminary gate training, QSC will hold off until Wednesday.
"We like the athletes to have a certain number of days of conditioning and on-snow time before we expose them to gate training," Leffler said. "But on the same token, you have to take it when you can get, especially this time of year."
A-Basin is only a temporary home for Leffler and his crew, which will relocate to Breckenridge once it opens.
Although Team Summit doesn't have to share terrain with the general public like its counterparts at the Basin, it is just one of several groups currently using Copperopolis as a training ground.
Ski teams from Aspen, Steamboat, Park City, Utah, and Ontario, Canada, were among the visitors to Copper over the weekend.
"The athletes are very aware of their bodies right now because they've been doing so much conditioning," Leffler said. "It's actually the best time to learn because their body awareness is so much higher during this transition time than it is at any other time of year."
One of Team Summit's focal points for the early season is returning to fundamentals.
"We're working on basic stuff like balance and stance," Team Summit assistant coach Doug Elsey said. "We sort of started over from the beginning and slowly progressed toward gates and racing. ... It's also important to get a lot of mileage. The lift ride is only four minutes long, so we can ski the legs off these kids in the early season."
"The turnaround is insane here," Spenst said, referring to Copper's Excelerator chair. "You can get close to 25 runs in a day."
Unlike some of Team Summit's elders, who have already done some preliminary gate training, QSC will hold off until Wednesday.
One of Team Summit's focal points for the early season is returning to fundamentals.
"We're working on basic stuff like balance and stance," Team Summit assistant coach Doug Elsey said. "We sort of started over from the beginning and slowly progressed toward gates and racing. ... It's also important to get a lot of mileage. The lift ride is only four minutes long, so we can ski the legs off these kids in the early season."
"The turnaround is insane here," Spenst said, referring to Copper's Excelerator chair. "You can get close to 25 runs in a day."
Unlike some of Team Summit's elders, who have already done some preliminary gate training, QSC will hold off until Wednesday.
"We like the athletes to have a certain number of days of conditioning and on-snow time before we expose them to gate training," Leffler said. "But on the same token, you have to take it when you can get, especially this time of year."
A-Basin is only a temporary home for Leffler and his crew, which will relocate to Breckenridge once it opens.
Although Team Summit doesn't have to share terrain with the general public like its counterparts at the Basin, it is just one of several groups currently using Copperopolis as a training ground.
Ski teams from Aspen, Steamboat, Park City, Utah, and Ontario, Canada, were among the visitors to Copper over the weekend.
A-Basin is only a temporary home for Leffler and his crew, which will relocate to Breckenridge once it opens.
Although Team Summit doesn't have to share terrain with the general public like its counterparts at the Basin, it is just one of several groups currently using Copperopolis as a training ground.
Ski teams from Aspen, Steamboat, Park City, Utah, and Ontario, Canada, were among the visitors to Copper over the weekend.
"We have the best snow in the country right now," said Spenst, who is one of Team Summit's three post-graduate racers (Kirsten Cooper and Katie Hartman are the others)
"This is the first year we've had a PG group," Elsey said. "They're our top kids and we're catering to their needs."
QSC, by contrast, has undergone something of a youth movement.
"We have a younger group than in past," Leffler said. "A lot of the skiers that people were following like Chelsea Lynch, Conor Lynch and Jason McNeill - the first group we kind of formed the Quantum Sports Club on - have moved on. Now we have a new wave of racers and it's fun to bring them up."
Longtime QSC member Katie Beardsley is an exception to the rule.
"This is the first year we've had a PG group," Elsey said. "They're our top kids and we're catering to their needs."
QSC, by contrast, has undergone something of a youth movement.
"We have a younger group than in past," Leffler said. "A lot of the skiers that people were following like Chelsea Lynch, Conor Lynch and Jason McNeill - the first group we kind of formed the Quantum Sports Club on - have moved on. Now we have a new wave of racers and it's fun to bring them up."
Longtime QSC member Katie Beardsley is an exception to the rule.
The 24-year-old racer is back for her second season since breaking both legs and blowing out both knees in 2004.
Beardsley helped out with coaching duties last winter as she gradually worked herself back into the flow of competitions. Although she may do a little coaching again this winter, it's clearly not her primary focus.
"I'm mostly going to train and race so I can get back to where I was before I got hurt," Beardsley said. "This year, I'm really going for it."
Adam Boffey can be contacted at (970) 668-4634, or at aboffey@summitdaily.com.
Beardsley helped out with coaching duties last winter as she gradually worked herself back into the flow of competitions. Although she may do a little coaching again this winter, it's clearly not her primary focus.
"I'm mostly going to train and race so I can get back to where I was before I got hurt," Beardsley said. "This year, I'm really going for it."
Adam Boffey can be contacted at (970) 668-4634, or at aboffey@summitdaily.com.
