World Cup ski races returning to Colorado ski resort
The Associated Press
Colorado’s Copper Mountain resort is returning World Cup ski races in a fashion like never before.
Starting on Thanksgiving, both men and women are set to compete four days at the resort off Interstate 70 — what a Tuesday announcement noted as “a unique opportunity for ski racing fans.”
Not often does as a World Cup alpine event host men and women in the same place at the same time (for a first time this past December, men and women raced back-to-back weekends at Beaver Creek’s famed Birds of Prey course). And not since 2001 has Copper Mountain hosted such a caliber of racing.
That’s when World Cup operators turned to the resort when snow conditions did not allow for women’s courses previously eyed in Aspen, where men stayed. For similar reasons in 1999, women’s races scheduled for Park City, Utah, moved to Copper Mountain.
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Thanksgiving is poised to be Copper’s fourth time hosting World Cup races. The first time was in 1976.
“With its top training facilities and proven track record of hosting international events, Copper Mountain represents the ideal venue for showcasing the highest level of alpine racing,” U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s President and CEO Sophie Goldschmidt said in a news release.
Copper has long catered to national and international pros for preseason training. The resort has prided itself as “the Athlete’s Mountain,” Stifel U.S. Ski Team representatives noted in Tuesday’s announcement.
The Stifel Copper Cup represents “a natural fit for us,” the resort’s general manager, Dustin Lyman, said in a statement. “Now, we’re excited to showcase our exceptional racing venue on the world stage.”
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The Thanksgiving weekend races are slated a little more than two months ahead of the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, Italy. The Stifel Copper Cup will feature men’s super-G and giant slalom, while women will race giant slalom and slalom — specialties of the winningest alpine racer in history, Mikaela Shiffrin.
In a statement, Shiffrin said she would miss racing the typical stage at Killington, Vt. Now living in Colorado, Shiffrin has roots in Killington, where the World Cup is expected to return in 2026. A lift replacement forced the move this year.
“Although I’ll miss racing at Killington this Thanksgiving, I am so excited that World Cup ski racing is coming to Copper Mountain for men and women,” Shiffrin said in a statement. “It’s so exciting to see Copper as a true World Cup race venue, and I’m particularly excited because it’s so close to home, I can sleep in my own bed and my community can come and experience it.”
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