2010 News Stories

29 October 2010 Recap

Today marked the first full day of the crew’s experience in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Scott Blackmun began the morning with an introduction welcoming the participants to the USOC and the Olympic Training Center Complex. After the introduction Glen Werner Roseboom guided the group around the entire complex. He presented the history of the complex and showed every building possible that was available to view. It was amazing to view the facilities (pool, shooting range, judo mats, gymnastic area etc). Glen explained that the purpose of building the facility was to catch up in the Olympics. Other countries had surpassed the United States in Olympic competition and the United States had enough.

When the tour came to a close it was back to the classroom. Keith Bryant and Alan Ashley gave two lectures that covered the “USOC Vision and Promoting Sport” as well as “Sport Performance Overview and Success”. Both presentations were enlightening. Alan Ashley made it clear that having the best coaches is more important than having the fancy facilities. For the longest time he trained his skiers in a tiny cubicle. Since he hired the best all around staff his athletes were considered the top of the line.

Once the coaches gathered in the Gold Room after lunch they participated in two athletic panels. The first panel consisted of three national coaches followed by a panel that consisted of four athletes. Each coach prepared questions the night before that they could ask to each individual. This was a great learning experience as the coaches could interview top level coaches as well as athletes.

The end of the night consisted of an optional movie at the visitor’s center. The movie selected by the coaches was Iron Man. The movie was action packed and consistently had each individual glued to the end of their seat.