From the U.S. Ski Team:

When it comes to specific race preparation, the U.S. Ski Team goes 'All Out,' or in this case, all in.

In order to ready for the upcoming Europa Cup indoor slalom at Landgraaf, Netherlands, tech aces Cody Marshall (Pittsfield, VT) and Tim Kelley (Starksboro, VT) joined up with Paul MacDonald (Bellevue, WA) for a training block at Snow Funpark, an indoor skiing facility in Wittenberg, Germany.

"We slept at the same place we skied, you can't beat that," said Marshall, who had a breakout World Cup season last winter scoring slalom points at both Wengen, Switzerland and Zagreb, Croatia. "It's like a hockey rink with a pitch and it's absolutely perfect for practicing ways to find speed on flat sections."

And with around 20 gates in the set, they get a lot of practice. At 330 meters in length, Snow Funpark is essentially a giant refrigerator laid diagonally on stilts. Only, this refrigerator also houses a hotel, restaurant, and for the U.S. Ski Team, slalom training.

"You can't create this kind of snow outside. It's around 22 seconds per run, so you get a lot of chances to work on your technique," Marshall said. "Our coaches Tom Sell and Pete Korfiatis have helped us out a ton and we've been pushing each other pretty hard. It's funny to say, but it's been a really good session and none of it was outside."

For Marshall, the measure of good slalom training is based upon the number of broken gates tallied at the end of the week.

"We broke a lot gates. I feel kind of bad about that, but if you want to be fast, you've got to hit them hard," he said.

Marshall enters his third season on the World Cup carrying the momentum of a breakthrough year highlighted by a 19th place finish in Wengen on a day where the first run was held in blinding snow and the second in rain. Following the Europa Cup in Landgraaf on Nov. 6, where McDonald was second last season, he heads to Levi, Finland for the first World Cup slalom.

"I'm really psyched for Levi. I was pumped to go there last year, but it was moved to Reiteralm [Austria] because there wasn't enough snow in Finland," Marshall said. "Hopefully it will go off this year. I gained some really good experience on the World Cup last year and I'm really fired up to get on it this winter."

The men's 2009 Audi FIS World Cup season opens Oct. 25 with a giant slalom in Soelden, Austria. Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) opened his run to the 2008 World Cup giant slalom title with a second place at the annual kick off race in Soelden.

This just in from the Associated Press:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — The 2010 Vancouver Olympics remain financially strong, organizers said Thursday, despite a current deficit, rising venue budgets and concerns about the global financial crisis.

The organizing committee’s latest financial statement says it ran a deficit of $40.5 million in the year ending July 31, compared to the $51.3 million surplus it had in 2006-2007.

“It’s important to look at that in the context of the entire run of the Games, the six-year period,” said John McLaughlin, the chief financial officer for the organizing committee, who added the deficit wasn’t a surprise.

“Whether or not we have a deficit or a surplus in any given year is really strictly just a matter of timing of our cash flows and is not indicative of the financial performance of the organization.”

The overall budget for venue construction hasn’t increased, the committee said. A contingency fund was built in to cover overruns.

McLaughlin said organizers still expect the Games to break even. He said the deficit comes from organizers ramping up spending on staff, technology and other planning elements for the Winter Games.

“We’re not asking for any more money, we won’t ask for any more money,” he said. “From our perspective we are going to complete them on target and on budget.”

When organizers first released their business plan for the 2010 Olympics last year, they said they were making their revenue plans on the assumption of the “Canadian economy remaining relatively strong with no recession through Games time.”

On Thursday, Canadian banks warned a recession was coming as the global credit crunch continues.

Still, McLaughlin said the Games are on solid financial footing — 79 percent of revenue has already been committed or received and organizers have surpassed their target for sponsorship.

Money from ticket sales will start coming in next month when the first phase of sales ends. Organizers say demand is high.

“We should be able to hit our revenue targets, not without our challenges but we’re in good shape,” he said.