The Coronet Peak skifield will once again host an influx of international ski racers, some of them fresh off the podiums of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, including gold medallists Maria Riesch, Aksel Lund Svindal, Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller.
The first are to arrive in less than two weeks.
The skiers will be based at the Queenstown skifield for training and races, starting with the arrival of the Canadian men's team on July 22, followed by teams from the United States, Germany, Switzerland and Norway in August.
More than half the medal-winning athletes in alpine ski racing from the 2010 Olympics will be using Coronet Peak as their training slopes.
The US team, which has trained at Coronet for years, includes gold medallist Lindsey Vonn (33 world cup titles) and Bode Miller (32 world cup titles).
US head coach Sasha Rearick said the goal was to get his athletes back in race shape for the beginning of the World Cup season in mid-October.
The race and events team with NZSki, which operates the Coronet Peak skifield, is involved in the US team's training.
Richard Murphy, head of the race and events department at Coronet, said the international skiers were a welcome feature on the slopes.
"Our crew works closely with all the race teams by preparing the slopes for their requirements.
Apart from injecting the slope at the race arena at Rocky Gully with water to make it suitably icy and fast, we also open the T-bar lift early for their training.
We will even often open the Heidi's Hut restaurant early for their morning tea," Mr Murphy said.
Mr Rearick said his team had been coming back to Queenstown for training for about 18 years, due to its facilities for race training.
But he said it was not all about the action on the slopes.
"Coronet rocks for race training. It is an amazing facility with everything we need for early-season training. You can get world class training in the morning and then go downtown where there is no snow on the ground and continue with our dryland training. You don't get that in too many places. That is a key part of our programme."
Mr Murphy said the international teams also had an important impact on New Zealand's athletes.
"This is also the main training ground for our national team, and it gives them the opportunity to race and train with the best in the world."
Up and coming racers got a lot of inspiration from watching them, he said, but any visitor could find themselves sharing a chairlift with an Olympic medallist in the morning.
"Many of these athletes are so famous in their home countries that they can hardly walk down the streets without being stopped. They enjoy the more relaxed attitude here in Queenstown, but they are also quite accessible. They will usually not hesitate to sign a child's helmet if asked for an autograph," Mr Murphy said.
