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Copper Mountain hosting U.S. Alpine Ski Team naming ceremony opening weekend

Sebastian Foltz
sfoltz@summitdaily.com

As part of their opening weekend festivities Copper Mountain Resort will once again host the annual U.S. Ski Team naming ceremony celebration Saturday, Nov. 8, in the resort’s Center Village. The event, previously held in Vail, is now in its second year at Copper.

“It’s a great opportunity for fans to come out and check out their favorite athletes,” resort spokeswoman Stephanie Sweeney said of the celebration. “We’re excited to be hosting it for the second year in a row. We look forward to hopefully hosting it for many years to come.”

Lindsey Vonn, Mikaela Shiffrin, Ted Ligety, Bode Miller and the full U.S. A, B and C teams are expected to be in attendance, to celebrate the start of the season and the lead up to the 2015 World Championships in Vail.



Members of the U.S. Alpine team started training at Copper earlier in the week, with some of the bigger names returning from the World Cup season opener in Austria for practice Thursday.

Copper has been the site of the team’s early season U.S. Ski Team Speed Center since 2011. While mild weather has relegated early season training to the upper mountain, Copper traditionally supplies the team with the world’s only full-length downhill training course available this time of year.



Warm weather has delayed snowmaking operations on the course which runs out of the East Village through mid-December. No timetable has been set for the opening of that portion of their training facility.

Snowmaking on the portions of the mountain that will open to the public Friday have proceeded as scheduled this week and the mountain will open to the public on Friday with top-to-bottom skiing out of Center Village.

Once the mountain opens to the public, the ski team will limit training sessions to morning hours prior to regular lift operation, until the full-length course is open.

Saturday’s team naming ceremony will kick off with a kids poster-making session at 1:30 p.m. in the Copper Conference Center. The celebration itself will start at 3:45 p.m. with a kids parade leading the team to Center Village. The team presentation will start at 4 p.m. followed by an autograph session.

“It’s a great way to open the season,” Sweeney said. “We’re proud to host them here and help them train.”


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