Following a two-day test session at High Plains Raceway, located 60 miles east of Denver, members of the No. 29 Budweiser Racing team, traveled to Colorado Springs, Colo., to visit the U.S. Olympic Complex on Thursday. The facility serves as the flagship training center for the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) and the Olympic Training Center (OTC) programs.
The day kicked off with breakfast in the dining hall with Corey Cogdel, a bronze medalist in women’s trap shooting in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, and Myles Porter, a Paralympic judo fighter. Both are scheduled to travel to London in the coming weeks to represent Team USA in the 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games.
Following breakfast the No. 29 Budweiser Racing team members visited the fencing gym where they learned the basics of the sport from Dennis Bowsher, a member of the U.S. Army who will represent Team USA in the Modern Pentathlon competition in London, as well as Jimmy Moody, a fencing training partner, and Andras Horanyi. Once the guys had the basics down they split into two teams and squared off in one-on-one competition against one another.
“The trip to the USOC facility was a great experience,” said Chad Haney, car chief on the No. 29 Budweiser Racing team. “It really put into perspective everything the athletes go through for the opportunity to represent our country in the Olympics. The fencing activity was a lot more fun than I imagined it would be. I wasn’t really sure how it’d go when we got there, but afterward that’s all we talked about all afternoon.”
After the fencing competition the team members toured the OTC facility and made a stop at the sports science center where they got to test out training equipment and learn more about the technology involved with performance analysis. Many of the guys took a turn running on the Alter-G treadmill, a piece of equipment used primarily in the rehabilitation of athletes with lower body injuries as it alters the forces of gravity so the athletes experience lower impact forces when running.
As the No. 29 team members took turns riding the Wattbike they received pointers to improve their pedaling technique and efficiency from USOC High Performance Director Scott Schnitzpahn. The USA Triathlon team uses the computer-based system extensively to help their athletes improve their cycling mechanics in an effort to make them as efficient as possible.
USOC High Performance Director Dr. ScottRiewald demonstrated how video footage is used to enhance athlete performance leading up to and during the Olympic Games in the video technologies lab. One of the systems the athletes utilize is Dartfish video analysis software, which is also used by NASCAR teams to dissect their on-track performance in comparison to the competition every weekend.
“It was amazing to see some of the technology that goes into their training and to see what the athletes are doing as they prepare to leave for London,” said No. 29 team crew chief Shane Wilson. “And it was interesting to learn they use some of the same software we work with at the track every weekend.”
The team members visited the weight room, the wrestling facility and the indoor shooting range before leaving the U.S. Olympic Complex to travel to California for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at the road course in Sonoma.
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