Olympic moguls and halfpipe training headed to Sun Valley

World-class moguls and halfpipe skiers are expected to do Winter Olympic training in Sun Valley in November and January, officials said.

That will be the first reward for the area’s being named an official Olympic  and Paralympic training site for alpine, cross-country, freestyle and freeskiing – essentially all the ski disciplines except for ski jumping and ski cross.

Sun Valley also landed the U.S. national championships in moguls and halfpipe for 2016 and 2018, said Rob Clayton, executive director of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation.

The foundation signed a three-year-agreement Aug. 12 with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association to provide facilities for elite, Olympic-caliber athletes. The foundation entered into a similar agreement for Olympic cross-country skiers three years ago but no such training occurred in Sun Valley for the most recent Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Clayton said.

For now, the most likely Olympic-caliber skiers that will visit the Dollar and Bald Mountain ski resorts in Ketchum-Sun Valley will be freestyle and freeskiing skiers in moguls and halfpipe.

“Specifically, what we’re looking for is early season training for moguls,” said Luke Bodensteiner, executive vice president of athletics at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, the national governing body for Olympic skiing and snowboarding. “We want to do about 20 days of training before Thanksgiving.”

Bodensteiner also anticipates a two-week camp in January in Sun Valley for the “very top athletes” in halfpipe and slopestyle, a ski or snowboard event involving obstacles.

Clayton is content with most of the Sun Valley focus going to moguls and halfpipe.

“Those are the sports the U.S. wins the most medals in,” Clayton said. “The bulk of the opportunity is in those sports.”

Details still have to be worked out with Sun Valley Company, which owns the ski facilities in Ketchum-Sun Valley. Nobody has yet said they’re planning to use the mountain, said Sun Valley Co. spokesman Jack Sibbach.

The Wood River Valley as a whole will benefit more from its nascent reputation as an Olympic training site than from the likely limited Olympic training itself.

“It’s another moment of perfect advertising,” Ketchum Mayor Nina Jonas said. “The ability to use the (Olympic) rings gives us instant credibility to our resources.”

“Having Sun Valley recognized as an Olympic training site for all the Olympic skiing events will raise the awareness of the whole area,” Sibbach said.

Clayton led the push to win an all-encompassing Olympic ski training site. He was the head of school for 11 years at the Winter Sports School in Park City, Utah, before moving to Sun Valley. He said his students brought home 12 Olympic medals over the years.

When Clayton came on board at SVSEF in 2013, the cross-country Olympic training designation was already in place. Clayton got to talking with local resident Jon Engen, a three-time Olympian in cross-country and biathlon, about adding more disciplines.

“Why not just do it all?” they reasoned.

Clayton successfully lobbied the U.S. Ski and Snowboarding Association, also based in Park City, to give Sun Valley a look.

Sun Valley becomes the third USSA Olympic training site along with Copper Mountain in Colorado and Mammoth in California. Olympic skiers do limited training at Mammoth and conditions aren’t always favorable early in the season in Colorado.

“There’s always a need for training facilities,” Bodensteiner said. “This will be a test year for us in Sun Valley.”

Twenty to 30 Olympic-caliber skiers will visit Sun Valley this winter, Clayton said. He expects hosting them to cost about $25,000.

“We have to prove that it works,” Clayton said. “It’s not a significant outlay. What we want to do is help the valley. We want to figure out ways to generate revenue.”