Austria’s national winter sports training base

Austria is a global powerhouse of winter sports. It is the sixth most successful nation in the history of the Olympic Winter Games and topped the medal table at the 2021 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. Part of its strength is based on its national team training sites, which make use of the sporting facilities in place in Innsbruck and the Tirol region.

The training base of the Austrian Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation can be found in Innsbruck, at the Olympic Ice Track, which was built for the 1964 Games and which attracts around 50,000 users and visitors a year, with around 25,000 bobsleigh, luge and skeleton runs completed annually. For their part, the nation’s lugers train at Innsbruck’s Federal Centre for Tobogganing, which was founded in 2004. Austria’s ski jumpers make use of the Bergisel Ski Jump for year-round training, and the country’s speed skating teams are put through their paces at the Olympia Eisschnellaufbahn (long track) and the TIWAG Arena (short track), which respectively attract 40,000 and 120,000 users and visitors a year. Both the Bergisel Ski Jump and Eisschnellaufbahn staged events at Innsbruck 1964 (ski jumping large hill and speed skating, respectively).

The athletes of the Austrian Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation and the Austrian Toboggan Association train at Innsbruck’s Tirolean State Sport Centre (Landessportzentrum Tirol), part of the extensive Olympiaworld complex. Completed in 1975, the centre’s apartments were used at the Olympic Winter Games Innsbruck 1976, while the sports hall was used during the Games for storing kit and was finished in 1977. The centre also has training facilities for figure skaters and athletes in a number of other Olympic sports/disciplines, including fencing, volleyball and water polo. Athletes who make use of the centre have access to state-of-the-art amenities and accommodation, and have courses, camps and sports weeks laid on for them. At grassroots level, local clubs, associations and schools make use of the centre’s facilities.

The high-performance and recreational athletes who access Innsbruck’s Olympic facilities have benefitted from the significant investments and upgrades made over the years. A case in point is the Olympic Ice Track, a combined track that replaced the separate bobsleigh and luge/skeleton tracks used at Innsbruck 1964. Visitors can experience its 14 bends (including the famous 360-degree Kreisel corner) for themselves, in the company of an experienced pilot. Meanwhile, freestyle skiers of all abilities can try out new facilities such as the ski-cross track and freestyle course at Kuhtai. Built for the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games, Kuhtai is now one of Europe’s leading centres for freestyle skiing competitions and training.