Weekly snow news roundup – 10/08/2009
Indoor skiing has captured the headlines this week, with news of 2 new developments being built. Texas will benefit from a $1.6 billion development and a 4,645.15 sq m indoor snow park will be built in Malayasia.
Check out this week’s snow news…
THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES
SnowWorld Expects To Host 2,500 Racers For Training, Including Italian World Cup Pasta Experts
Grand Opening for Liberty Mountain Snowflex® Center This Month
Indoor Snow Scheduled to Fall In USA This Month
Neveplast Adds Second Slope In United Arab Emirates
Snow For Kendal Festival
First Snow Event For Abu Dhabi This Autumn
Indoor Snow Centre Proposed for Texas
Malaysia Complex With Indoor Snow Centre To Begin Construction This Year
Russian National Snowboarding Cup Staged Indoor This Summer
128m Long Ice Slide Opens At Ski Dubai
SnowWorld Expects To Host 2,500 Racers For Training, Including Italian World Cup Pasta Experts
Holland’s SnowWorld at Landgraaf, the world’s largest indoor snow centre, expects to host more than 2,500 Dutch and international racers for training during 2009.
The centre, which holds annual World Cup indoor races each autumn to help kick-off the annual season, has been hosting the Italian National Team in recent weeks, a special pasta dinner was organised for them on their first night at the centre.
Giorgio Rocca, who along with Alberto Tomba, Ingemar Stenmark and Marc Girardelli is one of only four men to win five consecutive world cup slaloms in a season and fellow racer Christoph Innerhofer enjoyed their meal and were invited in to the kitchens by Snoworld chef Alexander Stephens where they were provided expert tips on pasta preparation.
The invitation resulted in the The Italian team participating in a pasta workshop scheduled between the bicycle training in the afternoon and the slalom training on the slopes in the evening.
Giorgio Rocca explained, “A real Italian pasta is prepared according to a family receipe that’s beyond price. We have some inside tips however which should help Alexander get an even better Italian taste thanks to the preparation of the pasta. From now on, there will therefore be a better Italian pasta than before. ”
In addition to the World Cup Italian ski team SnowWorld expects to host somewhere around 2,500 athletes for training, an increase on last year’s 2000. These include members of the Finnish and Norwegian teams.
Grand Opening for Liberty Mountain Snowflex® Center This Month
Liberty University in Virginia, USA plans to celebrate the grand opening of its new Snowflex® ski slope with a public event of professional exhibitions and open skiing and snowboarding on August 29th. The slope is complete and has already hosted thousands of visitors including an event for 2000 university alumni last weekend and is now open to the public.
The grand opening day exhibitions will feature professional skiers and snowboarders from the United States and UK. Afterward, the slopes will open for skiing, snowboarding and tubing down the mountain.
Liberty University’s Chancellor, Jerry Falwell, devised the Snowflex Center with the idea that students and the local community could have year round access, even during the summer, to a ski slope right at the school, on Liberty Mountain.
The synthetic ski slope which currently includes a cornice, three jumps, a quarter pipe and freestanding rails will later be soon be expanded to the top of Candlers Mountain, said Lee Beaumont, director of auxiliary services.
The grand opening is expected to excite the local community and beyond. Invitations will be sent out to many interested parties from across the whole of North America to see the ski surface’s capabilities first-hand.
“Snowflex® has been recognised as one of the most exciting innovations in the snow sports market and was chosen for the ski surface after much market research. Snowflex® was found to be the only credible alternative to “real” snow, designed to replicate all the properties that skiers and snowboarders experience with real snow. Snowflex® is low maintenance, requires no grooming as with real snow, and is softer to fall on than hard packed snow.” Said Terry Di Stasi, Snowflex’s Director of Business Development.
The Liberty Mountain Snowflex® Center is the first one of its kind fully built in the US, said Mr Beaumont, and has drawn the attention of international media.
“It’s real soft. It’s so cushy; people don’t realize how springy it is. We’re going to invite everybody to the opening” he added.
The Discovery Channel, among others, is tracking the development and is shooting more footage of the slope.
Terry Di Stasi, added that his company were thrilled with the project and look forward to it being the first of many across the US and North America.
www.liberty.edu / www.snowflex.com
Neveplast Adds Second Slope In United Arab Emirates
Neveplast’s artificial downhill skiing, snowboarding and tubing runs have increasingly gained in popularity over recent years. The company’s summer tubing runs have poroved especially popuylar across Europe and North America and now the Italian-based firm has now completed a second installation at Al Ain, the fourth largest city in the United Arab Emirates.
The project involved Neveplast’s expertise in building a slope on a metal structure with two downhill ski runs. One is used as a nursery slope whereas the other for more expert skiers.
Three Tubby tubing runs were placed beside the ski slopes.
Skiers will be taken to the top of the slopes by three conveyor belt lifts supplied by Austrian firm Sunkid.
“The client’s choice to use Neveplast, with its extremely low-cost installation and management, makes this project unique.” said a company spokesman.
www.neveplast.it
Indoor Snow Scheduled to Fall In USA This Month
A new report on the Xanadu complex in New Jersey, USA reports that the development’s backers remain optimistic that the mega-mall which includes North America’s first indoor snow centre will open next year as previously announced.
The indoor snow centre and most of the other facilities at Xanadu have been built and are more-or-less ready to open, but opening which had been planned for this year has been delayed due to a number of factor, primarily the world economic slowdown and its consequences for the likely success of the facility.
Testing of snow-making equipment in the centre is reported to be scheduled to take place from August 3rd to 14th. The new rail link to the complex opened on Sunday, July 26th.
Regular music festival goers know all too well the need to pack for bad weather but this year it’s time to get ready for snow!
SNO!zone, the company that operates the UK’s three indoor snow centres within the Xscape complexes of Glasgow, Milton Keynes and Castleford has made the Kendal Calling event at the weekend in to the country’s “coolest festival” with the delivery of 50 tonnes of real snow which will be used to create the Alpine-themed Off Piste area.
The Castleford-based indoor snow slope transported the snow across the Pennines to create the real chill out area for this year’s festival.
The SNO!zone Off Piste area opened on Saturday and Sunday August 1st and 2nd, providing the ideal place for festival-goers to cool down between bands.
The SNO!zone crew organised lots of activities for the weekend including the chance to have a go at tubing with a 30m snow slide being constructed on the hill, a snow beach providing the ideal place to chill out between bands and a snowboard simulator so that visitors could test how long they’d last on a real mountain.
If all that snow whetted festival goer’s appetite for some summer skiing or snowboarding the SNO!zone team had a variety of vouchers available which can be redeemed at their Castleford based snow slope.
www.snozoneuk.com
First Snow Event For Abu Dhabi This Autumn
UBMi UAE have confirmed that they are working with Majid Al Futtaim Leisure, operators of Ski Dubai, to bring the first snow event to Abu Dhabi this autumn. The Adrenaline Sports Live festival, will run from October 8th to 10th October.
Adrenaline Sports Live is the country’s first and so far only annual meeting point for the extreme, adventure and adrenaline sports communities and related companies. Adrenaline Sports Live 2009 aims to be what the organisers describe as an innovative action-packed family day out, where visitors can try out new sports, see professionals demonstrate their skills, get advice from local sports clubs, buy sports equipment and clothing and book adventure holidays directly at the festival.
Majid Al Futtaim Leisure plans to build a temporary ski slope at the Adrenaline Sports Live festival where visitors to the festival can try skiing and snow oarding for themselves.
Mike Mahoney, General Manager of Ski Dubai, the region’s first indoor ski resort, is delighted with the idea of taking the slopes of Ski Dubai outside the facility.
“This is the first time that we are taking our slopes to our Abu Dhabi visitors rather than they visiting us and we are very excited about it. The experience of snow in a desert is unique and we recognise that a lot of people in the UAE have never experienced snow. By taking our slopes beyond Dubai, we want the residents of the capital to have an unforgettable experience of snow and winter.”
Matt Tarrant, Show Director of Adrenaline Sports Live presented by Rani says “As the region’s first and only established festival for adrenaline, extreme and adventure sports and holidays, it is very important to us to continue to provide innovative, fresh and exciting experiences for visitors to the festival – the success of the festival depends entirely on the visitor experience. At this point, Abu Dhabi does not have an established indoor ski slope, so we are proud to work with Majid Al Futtaim Leisure to provide residents and visitors of Abu Dhabi another adrenaline first! This also allows us to provide a unique sponsorship opportunity for interested companies to advertise on the slope itself.”
Last year’s event attracted over 19,000 visitors to the festivals over three days. The 2009 festival runs from the 8th – 10th October at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre and is open to the general public. Free buses will run from major malls in Abu Dhabi to the festival and competitions onsite will give visitors to the show a chance to win over $20,000 worth of adventure holidays and adventure and adrenaline sports equipment. The ticket price of Dhs50 for adult and Dhs25 for children (under 16) allows entry to the show, the ability to try all of the adrenaline sports on offer.
www.adrenalinesportslive.com
Indoor Snow Centre Proposed for Texas
A new indoor snow centre has been proposed for a site near Fort Worth in north Texas as part of a $1.6 billion multi-use centre including retail, residential, office and entertainment space .
The Gardens of Grapevine Development expects to begin construction later this year, with an ambitious construction schedule which will see completion and opening in July 2011. However the company behind the project still needs to submit its second round of plans to the city of Grapevine next month for approval.
The indoor snow centre has a price tag of $70 million, will be called Texas Alps and is being designed by Snow Sport Entertainment Ltd on behalf of developers World Villages. The facility will include a 180m ( 600 foot) snow slope, indoor ice climbing wall and luge track.
“We want this to be the best place to be between Vegas and Orlando,” Tony L. Bowen, commercial real estate director of World Villages, told local media. “It’s not going to replace the Colorado experience at all; it’s really to build up the enthusiasm and build up the day-to-day opportunity for North Texans to practice skiing for when they do want to make their trips to Colorado.”
Malaysia Complex With Indoor Snow Centre To Begin Construction This Year
Central Malaysia Properties have announced that they will start developing Lido Boulevard, its multi-billion dollar waterfront development project, this year.
Managing director Datuk Chan Tien Ghee told local media land reclamation work would start soon and would take two years to complete.
The retail and residential complex will include an international-sized ice skating rink and 32-lane bowling alley as well as a 4,645.15 sq m indoor snow park.
Located on just under 50 hectares of land, about 6.8 million cubic metres of sand sourced from the east coast of Johor is required for the reclamation works.
“The project is expected to take shape by 2016 and it will completely rehabilitate Lido Beach and give Johor Baru a facelift,’’ said a company spokesman.
Malaysia has three small indoor snow facilities that were built in the 1990s, their current operational status is not known.
Russian National Snowboarding Cup Staged Indoor This Summer
The Russian national Snowboarding Cup is to be staged indoor’s in the country’s first indooir snow centre in Moscow this month.
The event, at the country’s SNEJ.COM winter sports complex will see the country’s best boarders going head-to-head in advance of next winter’s Olympic Games in Whistler.
With temperatures at 30 degrees Celcius the Russian national squad are reported to be delighted to be able to train and compete on snow in mid-summer.
128m Long Ice Slide Opens At Ski Dubai
Ski Dubai has opened a new attraction for those wanting to enjoy the snow without having to know how to ski or snowboard.
The Mountain Thriller is a 128 meter long ice slide, rather like a bobsled run, and requires no training or equipment to use.
“For our visitors who wish to enjoy descending the slopes of the region’s first indoor ski resort without skiing or snowboarding, Mountain Thriller is the perfect ride to be on,” said Ski Dubai operations manager Lucas Marchand.
The Mountain Thriller is suitable for anyone over the age of three and riders can reach speeds of up to 20km/h.
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