The United States Olympic Training Centers (OTCs) are three campuses created by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) as training facilities for its Olympic and Paralympic athletes. They are located in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Lake Placid, New York; and Chula Vista, California. There is a U.S. Olympic Education Center in Marquette, Michigan and other official U.S. Olympic/Paralympic training sites in Oklahoma City and Edmond, Oklahoma, Carson, California, Birmingham, Alabama, and the Pettit National Ice Center in West Allis, Wisconsin.
Some athletes preparing for the Olympics, Paralympics, and Pan American Games live at one of the OTCs for a period of months or years, while others visit periodically with their respective national teams for training camps, coaching (especially in sports science and sports psychology), or physical testing. Although foreign national teams are occasionally granted use of the USOTCs, they are used mainly by athletes from the United States.
The Colorado Springs OTC was the first of the three to be built, and has been the home of the U.S. Olympic Committee since 1978. Its location on the former Ent Air Force Base was selected for its relatively high elevation, which is often thought to improve training effectiveness. Its facilities include an Olympic-size swimming pool, an indoor shooting range, a velodrome, two sports centers housing numerous gymnasiums and weight rooms, and a sports science laboratory, in addition to an athlete center and dining hall, several dormitories, a visitors' center, and the offices of both the USOC and U.S. Paralympics.
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, olympic, training and/or center:
“Today’s difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“I do seriously believe that if we can measure among the States the benefits resulting from the preservation of the Union, the rebellious States have the larger share. It destroyed an institution that was their destruction. It opened the way for a commercial life that, if they will only embrace it and face the light, means to them a development that shall rival the best attainments of the greatest of our States.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)
“Unfortunately, life may sometimes seem unfair to middle children, some of whom feel like an afterthought to a brilliant older sibling and unable to captivate the family’s attention like the darling baby. Yet the middle position offers great training for the real world of lowered expectations, negotiation, and compromise. Middle children who often must break the mold set by an older sibling may thereby learn to challenge family values and seek their own identity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)
“There is nothing more natural than to consider everything as starting from oneself, chosen as the center of the world; one finds oneself thus capable of condemning the world without even wanting to hear its deceitful chatter.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)