Industry News
U.S. ski racer Mikaela Shiffrin shared a video of herself training at an indoor ski center in Hamburg, Germany. The U.S. athlete was at the Alpin Center Hamburg-Wittenburg two weeks ago for a training session. The Austrian Ski Team and the Scottish Alpine Team were also training at the Alpin Center Hamburg-Wittenburg this August.
The Alpin Center Hamburg-Wittenburg offers year-round skiing and boarding across an area of 30,000 square meters (322,920 square feet). The indoor slope at Wittenburg is one of the steepest ski hall slopes in the world and has a length of 330 meters (1,080 feet) and a width of up to 120 meters (394 feet). The slope is serviced by a quad chair, a t-bar, and a rope tow. Adjacent to the ski center is a Van der Valk Hotel, which is a Dutch chain of high-end hotels in the Netherlands and Germany, where Shiffrin and her team stayed.
Alpin Center Hamburg-Wittenburg offers dedicated race training during the summer months from the end of May. The race training features up to six water-injected Slalom slopes on a course equipped with B-nets. The indoor ski center features state-of-the-art ski runs in line with FIS standards that offer varying terrain. Ski racers can get about 10 runs in per hour, offering great training opportunities. In two training sessions in one day, athletes can get between 600 and 800 Slalom Gates under their belt. per day (2 training sessions). The center can also facilitate Giant Slalom sections but the slope is not long enough for a full Giant Slalom run.
Indoor ski centers lend themselves to training technical disciplines. While they do not provide the length or vertical required for Downhill or Super-G, Slalom and Giant Slalom can be very well trained indoors. During the summer months, indoor training is the only way to get guaranteed conditions and hours in. North America only has one indoor ski center, Big SNOW in New Jersey.
Summer training opportunities are currently dwindling for ski racers, with many summer ski resorts closing due to record warm temperatures. Hintertux Glacier in Austria had to temporarily halt operations, while others, such as Stryn or Fonna in Norway, had to close for the season. Some athletes have traveled to Australia or New Zealand for training purposes, while others have headed to South America.
- Related: Hintertux Ski Area, Austria, Halts Summer Skiing on Glacier Due to Deteriorating Conditions
- Related: Record Arctic Heatwave Forces Closure of Summer-Only Ski Areas in Norway
