Mammoth Mountain, CA – U.S. Women’s Alpine Speed Head Coach Chip White is settling back into the Pacific time zone following two weeks of training in New Zealand. In between the obligatory repair projects on his long-time home in Mammoth, he reflected on the success of the team’s on-snow camp down under.nQ: The team bounced around a bit in New Zealand this time around, how did varying training locations go?
White: It went really well. I went down to New Zealand a few days before the rest of the team arrived to scope out Cardrona. Normally we spend most of the camp at Coronet Peak, but Cardrona worked out to be an excellent location. It’s good to mix things up in order to get the athletes training on varied terrain, so we ended up spending three days training super G at Cardrona.
Q: How’d the athletes react to the change of scenery?
White: As with any camp, we had good days and bad days where everyone get’s a little frustrated, but for the most part things were awesome. More than anything, we spent a lot of time on super hard injected snow, which is something we struggled with last season. As a group, I know we’re all much more confident now on hard surfaces.
Q: There’s been some equipment shuffling among the athletes, how did the girls look on their new skis?
White: That was definitely a highlight. Julia [Mancuso, Olympic Valley, CA] looked great on her Voekl’s and Chelsea [Marshall, Pittsfield, VT] was super strong on her new setup from Head, Leanne [Smith, North Conway, NH] made the jump to Rossignol and seems to be settling into it nicely. Plus Lindsey [Vonn, Vail, CO] spent a lot of time working with her tech skis and left feeling really confident. Alice [McKennis, Glenwood Springs, CO] didn’t switch from Atomic, but it’s worth noting the huge strides she made in giant slalom at this camp.
Q: Any other group victories of note?
White: For sure, the atmosphere among this team is great. From the athletes to the staff, everyone is really energized. Across the board, there wasn’t a single bit of drop off in terms of effort throughout the camp. For the athletes, that has a lot to do with the time they’ve put in on their conditioning and it definitely is paying off. For the staff, it’s a good dynamic. This was the first time we were all together and it worked out great. There isn’t a slacker among us, that’s for sure.
Q: Aside from some home repair, what’s on deck?
White: We’re booked and ready to go to Portillo, Chile next month, so I’m working on some more planning there. They don’t have a ton of snow right now. I’ve been monitoring the weather pretty closely, but I’m confident we’ll have a good camp. I remember six or seven years ago, we went to Portillo on a tough snow year and just got creative with our training. It turned out to be an incredibly productive camp. Plus, we’ll be moving over to Valle Nevado partway to do some technical training with Trevor’s [Wagner, Technical Head Coach] group. In total, we’re spending a week longer this time around in Chile, but that’s going to save us a trip to Austria in early October, which the athletes are really excited about.