The only resort to have received two FIS World Championships within ten years in the history of modern ski racing, Vail/Beaver Creek is one of the most traditional World Cup organizers in North America. The first major international races took place there in March 1965, only a few years after the creation of the Vail village by Pete Seibert and his friends. These events, part of a team competition between the Austrian, the French and the US skiers, was a great success which contributed to the creation of the Alpine Ski World Cup a year later. Vail boomed in the following years. It was an initial date the first World Cup calendar in 1967 and became a regular stop on the World Cup circuit in 1983.
In 1988 the men's speed races were moved to Vail's new sister-area, Beaver Creek, which had opened in the early 1980's. In 1989, the FIS World Championships took place in Vail Valley - the first outside Europe since the 1950's FIS races at Aspen, Colorado. The entire Vail valley has developed into a very popular four season resort with over 30,000 beds and great ski and golf facilities. A new spectacular downhill course was designed by the 1972 Olympic Champion Bernhard Russi above Beaver Creek called the "Birds of Prey". It hosted the 1999 speed events that was the scene of great battles between Austria's Hermann Maier and Norway's Lasse Kjus for World Championship crowns.