In anticipation of the World Cup ski finals returning to Sun Valley after a nearly 50 year hiatus, the Wood River Museum of History + Culture is offering a series of 3 “Behind the Scenes” talks about what goes into these races from course prep to ski prep to skiers experiences and commentating.

The first evening will be on January 7 with Riley Berman, Sun Valley Resort’s competition services manager and chief of race course for the Alpine skiing World Cup Finals at Sun Valley. He’ll give a behind the scenes insight on what it’s taken to get a World Cup ski course ready for the top 25 skiers in the world. From installing new snowmaking, A-netting (he’ll explain all about that), re-contouring and tree removal, many adjustments had to be made in an extremely short 8 month window. Riley is a born and bred local, he grew up ski racing in the Wood River Valley and has worked as a fishing guide and ran Rotarun ski area in Hailey prior to joining Sun Valley.

Joining Riley will be Stacey Ehleringer, Local Organizing Committee Chair and Executive Director of Guest Engagement for Sun Valley Resort. Ehleringer will provide her insights and expertise on all the off-course work that is happening to make the World Cup an exciting reality for Sun Valley and the community. As someone who grew up ski racing in Utah, she’s deeply knowledgeable in racing, but her focus has been to coordinate and organize events that will happen off-mountain during the World Cup. Those events will include bib draw events at the Sun Valley Resort’s outdoor ice rink, a skijoring competition in the newly renamed Champion Meadows (formerly known as Festival Meadows), and a revival of the Harriman Cup prizes that were the original ski races held by Sun Valley in 1937.

This program is in-person only.

Behind the Start Gate Series
All the events are free and will take place in The Community Library’s Lecture Hall, beginning
at 5:30 p.m. Reservations are required for each individual event, and can be made at
www.comlib.org/calendar.

Behind the Start Gate Series:

Behind the Start Gate with Riley Berman and Stacey Ehleringer
Tuesday, January 7
Berman and Ehleringer share insights on making the World Cup a reality in Sun Valley—from the
intricacies of course construction to organizing the events on and around the mountain for the
community.

Behind the Start Gate with Steve Porino and Jake Moe
Tuesday, February 25
NBC broadcast journalist for World Cup ski racing, Steve Porino, will discuss the media
perspective of the World Cup and have a conversation with POWDER magazine co-founder, Jake
Moe.

Behind the Start Gate with Curtis Bacca and Jonna Mendes
Tuesday, March 4
Curtis Bacca will be in conversation with a local former U.S. Ski Team racer on the World Cup
circuit, Jonna Mendes. They’ll talk about their experiences at World Cup races—from the
perspective of working as a ski tech at over 200 World Cup races to the reality of being an alpine
ski racer in the US and Europe

Photo courtesy of Sun Valley Resort.