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PARK CITY -- The U.S. Ski and Snowboard athletes are hoping to have an edge in the upcoming Vancouver Olympics with their new training facility that just opened.
It's called the Center of Excellence, located in Park City. For the first time, the ski and snowboard athletes, coaches and staff will be under one roof.
The facility is 85,000 square feet and cost $22 million dollars to build, all privately funded. A few hundred athletes have already started training here since it opened in May.
Tyler Jewel, an alpine snowboarder and Vancouver hopeful, moved here from California just to train at the Park City facility.
"What I want to do is reach my fullest potential, and I can do that here with all the sports science and the brains behind the operation," Jewel said.
The focus of the building is centered around the athletes needs; there is a state-of-the-art sport science lab, a sports medicine lab and more.
"In the ‘90s we looked at our sports and thought: How can we be the best in the world? We really focust on sports science and conditioning, and we knew building a center like the Center of Excellence was really pivotal in our international success," said Tom Kelly, of the U.S. Ski Team.
Vancouver is only about seven months away, so the team is hoping to see some success there with the help of the new facility. But it will really be the 2014 Winter Games in Russia, and beyond, that the team will be able to tell if all of the new equipment and sports science pays off.
The official dedication for the Center of Excellence is next week; one of the only times it will be open to the public.
E-mail: abutterfield@ksl.com
