Park City, UT – The U.S. Freestyle Ski Team’s moguls squad spent time this summer jumping into the splash pool at the Utah Olympic Park in Park City to kick off the first water ramp camp of the 2010-11 summer season.nAmong the camp attendees were up-and-comer Jeremy Cota (Carrabassett Valley, Maine), FIS Rookie of the Year Heidi Kloser (Vail, Colo.) Olympian Heather McPhie (Bozeman, Mont.), Joey Discoe (Telluride, Colo.), David DiGravio (Farmington, Maine), Mikaela Matthews (Frisco, Colo.) and Kayla Snyderman (Winchester, Mass,), who is returning from an injury last season.
“Most of the athletes we have at this camp are more of our up-and-comers. We’re working on basic skills here as we progress to our next on-snow skiing camp in Australia,” said U.S. Moguls Head Coach Scott Rawles. “We really dial into the basic stuff as we build to our competition season in December. That’s our goal to get to the top end of what they are doing.”
The camp was scheduled like a football two-a-day camp. For one week, the participating athletes were attending a two- to three-hour morning session at the Utah Olympic Park (UOP) on the water ramps and an afternoon session consisting of various cross-training activities such as hikes and biking.
“It’s pretty early for us to be water ramping. So we’re just getting started and trying to grasp a feel for the ramps,” said Cota. “We’re mostly working on old tricks and cleaning them up. Pretty soon a lot of us head to summer camps and on snow camps, so we’re trying to get things dialed in.”
Snyderman, coming off an injury last season, used the camp for motivation and working back into the sport. Comfort and confidence will be key for her progression heading into the first skiing camp in Australia in August.
“I haven’t been training for a pretty long time, about a year, because I’m coming back from an injury. I’m pretty rusty and working on everything,” said Snyderman. “My first goal is just to get back to where I was, get comfortable on snow , moguls and in the air, then I want to progress beyond that.”
The camp ran parallel to development programs like the FLY Freestyle and U.S. Aerials recruitment camp, and the FLY Freestyle elite development program. The future hopefuls were training side-by-side with the national team.
“It’s awesome for us, I like coming out here. It’s great to see the other kids and clubs and see our pipeline in action,” said Rawles. “This is truly the start of athletes being able to get to the national team; this is kind of where it all starts. The UOP has been a great partner of ours; it’s a good situation for all of us.”
The UOP water ramp camp concluded in mid-June. The squad then headed earlier this month to Blackcomb ski area in British Columbia, Canada, to train on snow before returning for another UOP water ramp camp at the end of this month.