The journey for athletes who come through the Colorado Springs Olympic and Paralympic Training Center every year begins as they walk through the doors of the Peter Ueberroth Athlete Welcome Center."This is probably the most impo rtant facility on campus in my opinion," said Mike Beagley, director of sport venues and high performance centers for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. "It's much like checking into a nice hotel where you'll get your key and your schedules and all the different things you need to compete at the highest level."Beagley said athletes started training here nearly 50 years ago. At the time, the loosely formed USOC was based out of the New York Athletic Club."We were looking for a home, we were looking for a place that would accept us and allow us to prepare for the 1984 games, which were coming to Los Angeles," Beagley said. The USOC settled on the former Ent Air Force Base just east of downtown Colorado Springs. It was the original home of NORAD until NORAD moved into Cheyenne Mountain in the late 1960s. The Air Force allowed the USOC to buy the 36-acre property for $1. "Obviously we've invested quite a bit more into the growth of it, but yeah, that was an incredible gift for us," Beagley said. A lot has changed over the decades to transform the military base into an elite training facility for athletes. The old military barracks still house some athletes, but new dorm suites have been built. The Olympic Committee has also built an aquatic center, two sports centers, an athlete welcome center, and a dining facility. An altitude training facility on campus has the technology to mimic any environment in the world. "An athlete wants to train at sea level, we can make it feel like sea level," Beagley said. All are part of the many resources available here to help U.S. athletes become the best in the world. "I think the really cool thing is when you see an athlete come in here, they start training, and then we get to go to games and watch them hopefully get on a podium and bring back a medal," Beagley said.Training at this elite facility is invite-only. But once here, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, which is a privately funded non-profit, covers the costs to train and live on campus. Athletes often lead tours of the facility. Click here for tour information.Colorado Springs is also home to 25 of the 52 National Governing Bodies (NGBs). These are the organizations responsible for each sport throughout the United States, which then report to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.I recently spoke with one of the directors of Colorado Springs Sports Corporation. It's the entity that works to get the NGBs to move their headquarters here. He said examples of prominent NGBs that are based here include USA Basketball, USA Swimming, and USA Wrestling."There is something about this community and the Olympic movement that is here, and the Paralympic Movement that people do want to come here. Organizations want to come here, and our city has really gotten behind that, and we take pride in the fact that we are Olympic City USA," said Davis Tutt of Colorado Springs Sports Corporation.Tutt told me other countries consider the two Olympic hubs of the world to be Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Lausanne, Switzerland, where the International Olympic Committee is based.This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy. ...read more read less