The Turkish Ski Federation is making great progress in the development of skiing in Turkey and hosting the 2011 FISU Winter University Games (known as the Universiade).
The planned site of the competitions, Erzurum (at 1850m), is the biggest city in the Eastern Anatolian region and is also a very ancient settlement. Located at the skirts of Palandoken Mountain, the city has gained great importance in the field of winter tourism in recent years.
Just 150 km from the border with Georgia to the north east, 200 km to Armenia to the east, 250km from the boarders of Iran and Iraq to the south and 300km to Syria to the south west, Erzurum is uniquely positioned in the world of skiing. The ski areas around Erzurum now annually host international ski tourists from Iran, Russia, Israel and the Netherlands. The ski areas are open from December until April.
The Turkish Ski Federation owns the ski lifts, snow making facilities and grooming machines for pretty much all of the ski areas in Turkey. Their goal is provide one season pass available at all ten ski areas in Turkey. There will be seven new high speed lifts installed and snowmaking installations with significant reservoir capacity.
The staging of the FISU Winter Universiade, set in late February 2011, has led to a great deal of new development in ski lifts, 14 km of a new snowmaking system, a new ski jumping facility, snowboard and ski half-pipe–the first in Turkey–as well as a brand new ski area for the Alpine competitions.
The Snowboard and Freestyle events will be held at Palandoken Mountain (2000m to 3150m) just minutes from the center of Erzurum. The brand new ski area is called Konakli, some 20 minutes from Erzurum, and it will host the alpine competitions in four events. The new 125m and 95m ski jumps are located at Kiremitliktepe while the area of Kandilli will host Cross-Country and Biathlon competitions. It has been estimated that over 30 million Euros will be spent on the development of new winter sports infrastructure including 10 new grooming machines.
For more information visit http://www.universiadeerzurum.org
