Final World Cup Tune-ups in Colorado

Beaver Creek, CO, Nov. 10, 2000–Alpine men and women are finding plenty of snow as they go throughtheir final tuneups in Colorado before the start to continuous racing on the World Cup tour in Park City and thefirst races of the Chevy Truck Super Series. Weather forecasts called for even more snow through theweekend.

Both men’s and women’s teams are looking to fill the final open spots for the giant slalom and slalom races Nov.16-19 at the Chevy Truck America’s Opening at Utah’s Park City Mountain Resort. The women have oneslalom slot and two GS start spots, which could be filled, while the men will determine the final GS starter andtwo slalom starters; time trials will help coaches pick the GS racers while the Super Series races scheduled forSaturday and Sunday at Loveland Ski Area will produce final U.S. slalom starters.

“The snow gets better every day,” Thomas Vonn (Newburgh, NY) said Thursday after a third day of giantslalom training at Beaver Creek. “It’s so dry that the snow hasn’t been too hard, but it’s getting there. It’d be niceif we could get some more pitch to the course, but it’s good to be on snow.”

Men’s slalom/GS Coach Jesse Hunt added, “Yeah, we had a super day today – a good session of slalom andfull-length GS. The snow’s started shaping up. Beaver Creek’s doing its usual great job.”

While the men’s speed group is training at Mammoth Mountain, Calif., the women downhillers are getting insuper G training on the other side of Vail Pass, at Copper Mountain. Head Coach Marjan Cernigoj also has histech skiers training at Copper.

“We’ve had good training. We’ll have to see what the next few days bring,” he said.