London (UK), England – Canada’s Men’s Alpine Ski Team is forging ahead with their opening on-snow training camp in New Zealand later this month despite the loss of the entire fleet of equipment and supplies in a warehouse fire at London’s Heathrow Airport last week.n“This has come as quite a shock to us but we’ve decided to push ahead with this important training camp,” said Alpine Canada Alpin (ACA) President Gary Allan. “Literally everything that we had for the camp, all the skis, electronic timing, communications and computer equipment has been lost. So at this point we are starting from scratch and working our way toward what is needed to make this training camp happen.”

He estimated the total loss to be around C$150,000. Insurance is expected to cover much of the cost but that process is likely to take months, far too late for the equipment to be replaced by the time the upcoming training camp begins.

The Canadian Alpine Ski Teams were using the airport warehouse prior to shipping the equipment to New Zealand, which was planned this week.

“Obviously what we are mobilizing now, and require the most, is to replace the equipment and supplies that we lost as quickly as possible so that our skiers can focus on training,” Allan said. “The cooperation that we have received from our many suppliers and partners has helped a lot, but there’s a long way to go. The national teams have a lot of momentum following the Olympic Winter Games and we felt this camp is too important to lose. This coming season is too important. We need to make sure that our skiers get on snow if we want to be successful against the top ski racing nations.”

Media reports indicate that a forklift truck caught fire at the warehouse at Heathrow Airport on July 9, starting the blaze. No one was injured.

The Canadian men’s team is scheduled to open on snow training at Coronet Peak ski area in New Zealand in late July. Men’s and women’s speed and tech teams are all scheduled to participate in training camps in New Zealand this summer.