Olympians join Ariens for Nordic Center celebration

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) - Community members and Olympians joined Ariens Co. for the kickoff of its Nordic Center.

Ariens had an exciting day celebrating how far the project’s come since breaking ground in November. While the site is just dirt now, come December it will be home to the largest and only year-round biathlon training center in Wisconsin. It’s a project that’s taken the company four years of work.

“When you’re a Nordic skier and you’re looking for snow and you know it’s here in Brillion, that’s just going to be win-win for the community and for Brillion. I just think this is great for our small town,” Chairman and CEO of Ariens Company Dan Ariens expressed.

Ariens explained the facility is open to everyone.

“Yes, we can train and we can train high performance athletes out here. But, every family can come out and learn to ski,” he said. “It’s like, hey, I can bump into one of the Olympic athletes here at training while I’m getting my workout in as well.”

For local Olympic biathlete Deedra Irwin, the new center is very exciting as it will allow her to train closer to home in the summer months when she usually would have to be in Vermont or New York.

“It’s going to be so cool to have all walks of life, all different abilities in one spot at the same time,” Irwin said.

She hopes this new center will drive more interest in her sport of choice.

”To be able to have this facility and hopefully have schools be able to come down and visit, and maybe have Olympic days where they can come and check out cross-county and biathlon, it’s going to be amazing,” Irwin continued. “It’s going to be a game changer for people who want to train full time out of the Midwest and not have to move so far away from their families and their friends.”

Wednesday, community members got to hear from Irwin and her fellow Olympic athletes and take a tour of the unfinished site.

When it’s finished, the facility will have a 3K roller-ski loop, a 20-point biathlon range and what officials call the most advanced snow-making system for Nordic skiing.

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