The World Cup According to Grande: Lake Louise is on the way

It is November 20, 2010 and we are one week away from the Men’s World Cup in Lake Louise. The U.S.A. boys have left to go home for a short break before heading to the Great White North. I heard it is cold up there! They have had some new snow over the last week and forecasting a high temperature today at minus 17 Celsius. Boys and girls, that is cold. That’s about 0 degrees in American. That is the high temperature so it’s got to be getting cold at night.

 In the meantime, here in Vail, Colorado, we are all eagerly awaiting the next winter storm to hit the area. It sounds as though tonight is when we will see it arrive and have it stick around for a day and a half. We are expecting to see about a foot here in the Vail Valley and more at higher elevations and south facing slopes. It is funny how it works, just as the training hill is rounding into perfect shape from the last storm, we will get another one. As usual, we will plow through it and make our training the best it can be. There are a number of national teams in town. The German girls are here, Italian women, Tanja Poutiainen is here as well. The Russian women’s team has been here for a week too.  Our girls are heading back this way after getting a shot at the race hill in Aspen at the end of last week. They had the opportunity to train on the race hill on Friday and Saturday. This is the biggest advantage we could have at Aspen. Kudos to Mike Kaplan, CEO of Aspen, and all the snow preparation guys along the way for getting that hill in shape and allowing our kids on the hill. It has been years, probably since the year we were able to train in Park City before the World Cup there in November, 2003 that we have been able to do so. The men’s team has never been able to get on Birds of Prey proper or the GS hill prior to race day. We had been able to use the Flyway up top for ski testing, which is always great. But we have never been on the GS or SG hill prior to FIS closure five days out from the race. Good move and I hope it works out. It really should.

I had the good fortune of dropping in on my old friend Russ Shay at his Surefoot shop in Vail yesterday. My son, Coen needed some new foot beds and one of the J2 boys got some fit work done.  Russ and I grew up racing and skiing together in southern Vermont in the 70s and both went on to Stratton Mountain School where we were roommates our senior year. Russ and his brother Bob founded Surefoot and Russ still runs and works at the shop in Vail. He was in there making my son’s beds himself, grinding on boots and helping the customers, flying around the shop at high speed making sure all the needs were being met. It’s always fun watching him work the room. He is exceedingly good at what he does.

So, I digressed from the Lake Louise focus. It is cold up there, and I will likely remain cold through the week.  It looks like the temperatures are going to peak at -16 Celsius for the highest high during the day on Wednesday (the first training day) and hit lows around -30 Celsius at night. According to www.snow-forecast.com the temperatures should start to release around Thursday the 25th, hitting a high of -9 Celsius.  However, a cold snap like that in the Banff National Park often sticks around longer than expected.  From what I hear, the hill is in excellent shape. They have had about 30 cm of natural snow over the last week, which really is not too hard to deal with. With those cold temperatures and a lot of side slipping and snow removal from the race crew there, the hill should be in great shape for the first training day. I have to hand it to the organization there and the crew. They host the men’s World Cup, and then roll it straight into the Women’s World Cup followed directly by the Men and Women Nor Am Cup after that. With three straight weeks of racing speed on the same venue, that hill takes a pounding but again, the race crew and organization there make it happen year after year and I hope they know how much we appreciate it. It helps both North American countries build our speed profiles and get much needed experience on a very good hill. Thank you very much to all of you in Lake Louise!

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Greg “Grande” Needell grew up ski racing at Stratton Mountain,
Vermont. After graduating from SMS he skied for NCAA Division 1 St.
Lawrence University in Canton, NY where he was co-captain in 1986. Greg
returned to SMS to coach there for five years serving as the Head
Women’s Coach as well as the Head J2 Men’s Coach. He then moved to
Mission Ridge in Wenatchee, Washington in 1992 to become the Program
Director and Head Coach of the Mission Ridge Ski Club. In 1997, Greg
became the Head Coach at Mammoth Mountain, California.

In 2002 Needell was asked to join the U.S. Ski Team staff as a World
Cup SL and GS coach. From 2002 to 2008 Needell helped lead the U.S. Ski
Team Men to 43 wins, 105 podiums and 264 top ten finishes. Now at the
helm of Alpine Race Consulting, Needell offers his knowledge and
experience to clubs nationwide.

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