Olympic Training Towns

SI Staff | Feb 29, 2008

Olympic Training Towns /

Olympic Training Towns

new.mountain.jpg — Todd Bigelow/Aurora/SI

At 11,053 feet, Mammoth Mountain, which sits five hours north of L.A., is a mecca for skiers, snowboarders and mountain bikers ...

And a few determined runners, including Olympic trials champion Ryan Hall (right) with Steve Slattery (left) and Mike McKeeman.

The Wolverines may be famous for football, but Michigan also boasts some of the top swimmers in the country under coach Bob Bowman. The name Michael Phelps ring a bell?

The 4,000-square-foot pole vaulting training site built by coach Rick Suhr, pins two Quonset huts end-to-end to create a 120-foot-long synthetic runway for Jenn Stuczynski (pictured) and others.

The Ivy League college town is an academia's paradise and a rower's haven. Princetonians love their Olympic rowers, allowing them to train on Lake Carnegie and Lake Mercer year-round, and subsidizing their housing, food and medical care.

Get past the rocky bumps and turns along I-45 in south Texas and you'll soon find yourself in the middle of Sam Houston National Forest, the home of Karolyi's World of Gymnastics. That's where Olympic hopefuls drill from dusk 'til dawn and turkeys and antelopes roam among the 2,000-acre ranch.

Preparing for their Olympic debut, BMX riders train on their gnarly replica of the Chinese-designed supercross course just south of San Diego. This $500,000 run features a 30-foot start hill -- in comparison to the typical six- to 12-foot drop -- and a layout that allows for speeds up to 40 mph.

The U.S. Olympic Training Center, a place nearly 560 athletes call home and many others spend most of their waking hours, was built 30 years ago. But its training facilities hardly show their age as they include treadmills that reach 20 mph and include video and computer systems that give athletes instant feedback on their workouts.

Some Olympic hopefuls stay at the OTC year-round, such as volleyball players.

A bit of motivation for the Olympians-in-training: a countdown to the upcoming Olympics.

Among the nine sports housed at the OTC is wrestling -- a sport known to blow away visitors with its strict training and diet regimen at the facility.

Located in within Columbus, Ga., Fort Benning is the nation's second-largest Army post. It's also the training facility for the 32 shotgun, rifle and pistol shooters who are part of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit -- the most precise prospective Olympians.

For Sgt. 1st Class Daryl Szarenski, physical training starts at 8 a.m. with squats, crushes and crackles of gunshots announcing the new day.

The sport may be understated, but badminton has a heck of a following in this town. The sport's Olympians train at the Orange County Badminton Club, a 77,000-square-foot building that manages to combine Thai food, lobster tails, state-of-the-art facilities and a catalog-printing center.

Published Feb 29, 2008

SI STAFF