Panorama Mountain Resort announced Nov. 20 that the mountain opened this week on schedule for top ski and snowboard racers to train for the upcoming race season.

Panorama has been providing early season race training since 1992 and over the coming weeks a multitude of racers from around the world will have exclusive use of the mountain. Officially recognized as an Alpine Canada National Training Centre, teams represented at Panorama will be Canada, Austria, Japan, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Russia, Spain and USA.

“It’s going to be a big year for racing at Panorama,” says Steve Paccagnan, president and CEO of Panorama Mountain Resort. “For the first time ever, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Alpine Skiing World Championships will be held in North America – right here at Panorama.”

The IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships will be held at Panorama from March 2-10, 2015. Last January, Panorama hosted the last IPC World Cup event before the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The race was held on a new course purpose built for the event and the upcoming Championships.

Ideal temperatures allowed non-stop snow production by the mountain operations team. At the same time, the resort also received 20 cm of light dry natural snow to contribute to an excellent quality of snow on the mountain.

For optimal racing conditions and for an enhanced skiing experience the resort continues to invest heavily in its state-of-the-art snowmaking equipment, adding 30 new TechnoAlpin snow lances to the fleet.

Paccagnan continues, “Panorama’s advanced snow-making technology delivers great snow, efficiently, and quickly. The addition of more pole type air & water guns, particularly these very portable snow lances, allows us to run continuously without the downtime usually associated with moving a gun from one location to another. When you combine all this technology with an amazing team the resort will be able to open more terrain, sooner. We started making snow on Showoff on Sunday night and in less than a week it was open for racers which is a record setting time for Panorama!”

Other snowmaking improvements include the addition of outlets to run ultra-powerful fan guns, added last winter, and an overhauled SnowMax injection system. SnowMax provides a nucleus for snow crystals to form, helps to make better snow at near freezing temperatures and helps eliminate ‘fog’ at much colder temperatures.

The IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships marks the end of the 2014-15 World Cup, NorAm and Europa cup season. The event and consists of 5 races: Downhill, Super-G, Super Combined, Giant Slalom and Slalom. Season champions will be crowned and awarded World Cup Crystal Globes at the competition that sees male and female athletes with a physical disability compete in three categories based on their functional ability. A results calculation system allows athletes with different impairments to compete against each other. Athletes with physical disabilities use equipment adapted to their needs including single ski, sit-ski or orthopedic aids. Skiers with blindness/visual impairment are guided through the course by sighted skiers who use voice signals to direct them.

The resort will also be hosting a variety of races throughout the winter. Two other International Ski Federation (Fédération Internationale de Ski – FIS) races include the Nor-Am (December 13-20) and the Keurig Cup (December 19-23).

The mountain opens to the general public for skiing on December 12.

Above photo: Race training underway – November 17.
 Photo courtesy Panorama

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