Alpine Skiing

A team in transition is, by definition, a team that's up in the air.

In the case of the Austrian alpine ski team, being up in the air also means flying in for training sessions and Olympic races by helicopter from its Sun Peaks training base in Kamloops.

But flying in for the Olympics isn't another chapter in the cloak-and-dagger secrecy that has developed in the build-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics. It's a sensible way of getting to the competition from the Canadian training base the Austrians have been using since 2005.

"For the Austrian team, it's important to have a special place because, some years ago, we would spend a lot of time in North America, and in the autumn it was quite busy there," says Walter Gradwohl, an Austrian coach in the downhill and super-G disciplines.

"The World Cup speed events always start here, and we had to come over with technicians and coaches and make equipment adjustments.

"There were a lot of teams showing up at the same time, a lot of teams training on the same day. The time schedule was really close, and if the weather was bad, we could miss a whole day of training. There was time pressure on the athletes and this was not the right thing for the Austrians."

The Austrian team signed a five-year agreement with Sun Peaks - which also explored the possibility of being host to the Canadian team but found it was not available. The Austrians have a "handshake agreement" to be at Sun Peaks another five years.

Two days before a race or two days before training, the helicopter makes the lift of skiers from Kamloops to Pemberton, B.C., north of the Olympic site because one of the security measures of the Games is a no-fly zone over Whistler.

Athletes there are whisked into Whistler for their training - men's downhill training starts Wednesday - and some stay over at an Olympic athlete village, about four kilometres from the hill.

"We know the snow in Whistler, we have spies over there and we know exactly what's going on. Some coaches have been there and they know a little bit about the slopes," said Gradwohl, who is rebuilding the Austrian speed squad after the retirement of Hermann Maier, who has been the symbol of Austrian leadership and performance.

The Austrian team has sagged on the speed events. After Austria took 14 alpine medals at the Turin Olympics, it took only two golds at the Val d'Isère world championships last year, and it scored no downhill wins in 12 World Cups this season.

There was a massive overhaul in the coaching ranks from four years ago, with 17 changes in all.

The Sun Peaks track has been a place to get away from prying eyes while rebuilding.

"All our athletes who show up for the Olympics come here first and do some good training," Gradwohl said in an interview from Sun Peaks. "This is our base camp here. If it's necessary, if some guys are doing more than two or three disciplines and the training is not good enough in Whistler, we come back to Sun Peaks and offer them very good training here."

Sun Peaks officials have poured some $3-million into remaking the part of the mountain used by the Austrians. They've even renamed one of the runs OSV (for the Austrian federation's German handle Osterreichischer Skiverband) and hardened the course with water injection to make the surface more similar to Whistler.

"But the story that Austrians built the helipad or that we built it specially for them is urban legend. It was there before," said Sun Peaks vice-president and general manager Darcy Alexander. "They did work toward the building of the hill for a mutually beneficial relationship."

When men's downhill training starts today, look for Michael Walchhofer to be the top Austrian. He has 44 World Cup wins - mainly downhills, but was far off the podium the only time he has skied Whistler, a super G World Cup in 2008.

Walchhofer, like most downhillers, was born with a certain predisposition for the speed event, the coach said.

"It's possible to train an athlete [through] thousands of slalom gates and make a good skier. But to get the feeling for a downhill, it's something a skier must have from the beginning on. The first day that you get on skis, you have it or you have it not.

"To learn it. For me, it's not really possible. It's something that's in the body.

"Walchhofer, he skied the Whistler super G two years ago, but only the lower part, not the upper part of the downhill. That's all he knows about the hill," said the coach.