"desi" wrote:

Gene, et al.

Norway is far more disappointed, as a nation and a ski community. The
U.S. and the U.S. ski community is content with mediocre.

I have been traveling out of the country for 6 months, and made the
mistake of reading this site upon my return. Have to clarify some
history for you.

Prior to Randall's ninth in the 2006 Oly sprint, the best female US
finish in an Oly race was Kemppel, 14th in the 30k in 2002. Team
mates at APUNSC (aka Gold 2002) by the way until Nina retired.

I am really puzzled by your statement: ". It's very American to
have a short memory and brag about coming in last place, in this
case 10th." What in the world are you talking about?


Welcome back, Desi. Check the front page of any newspaper for a
perspective on American memory (of course, memory is related to age,
ethnic/national background and study of history). In cross-country
skiing, Americans typically build up performance reports by focusing on
how many seconds the athlete was from such and such position. But even
thirty seconds can seem like next to nothing until one counts the
number of others who also finished within that time frame. You're
correct, Randall came in 9th place, last in her semi-final heat but
with a faster time than Anna Dahlberg. Comparing that to, say, Nancy
Fiddler's several top twenty WC finishes in longer races strikes me as
comparing apples and oranges, at best. I wonder how many have even
heard of Nancy Fiddler. Or of Allison Kiesel, who back in the 1970s
(until 1981) had some top 10 WCs, finished second in the Holmenkollen
10k in 1980, won the inaugural women's official WC event in 1979 at
Telemark, WI, and was 7th in the overall WC rankings that year. So why
limit ourselves to the Olympics? For example, compare Koch's and
Kiesel's performances in the Olys vs WC (Dick Taylor has an interesting
discussion of why the difference: misguided U.S. technique
innovations).

Gene