No, there isn't much difference between being 50th out of 54 or 50th
out of 75. Both results are bad either way you slice it. Those between
50 and 75 aren't Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, Germans, Italians etc.
They're Croatians, Slovenians, Turkish and so on. In other words,
nations with far less monetary resources than we have. We've had a
couple of decades of skiers placing in the 50s and a couple of decades
of sending skiers to the Olympoics or World Championships that have no
business being there. We can't waste resources on skiers like that. In
the U S, we have more distractions than in Canada. Football, Baseball,
Basketball and Hockey are big draws in the U S. Canada has Hockey.

How about the idea of focusing on speed?

J Tegeder
"Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT