PARK CITY — At the beginning of the summer, it was an unfinished space with concrete fl oors on the third level of USSA’s Center of Excellence. By August 27, it had become a school — the U.S. Ski Team’s fi rst-ever national academy.

The USSA Total Education and Athletic Model (TEAM) Academy, is — at least in theory — modeled after European systems that have been successful in such countries as Austria, Norway and Switzerland.

“For the last 15 years or so, we’ve really been focused on building our programs into the best ski and snowboard association in the world,” says USSA Executive Vice President of Athletics Luke Bodensteiner. “To do that, we spent a lot of time looking at [European countries] and saying, ‘What are those guys doing right?’ One of the particular things that we found is that they all have a national ski academy.”

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