I believe you are looking at the wrong end of the problem.

All your suggestions deal with the existing elite racers and how to improve
their performance. These are short term solutions since eventually these
athletes will retire and you haven't developed a system to replace them.

In my opinion, the key to long term success is to start with programs that
recruit lots of very young children, get them involved in the pure enjoyment
of the sport and perfect their technique. From that point there should be a
progression of development from fun, to fun racing, to fun training, to
serious racing, to serious training and so on until you have successful
elite racers and a stream of replacements following them. At all stages
skiers must have competent coaching with coaches who have received adequate
training for the level of skiers they are working with. Skiers should be
encouraged to participate to their level of ability and commitment. If they
don't progress to the elite level they should be encouraged to stay in the
system as recreational skiers or racers and ideally to help with coaching
and pass on the skills that they have learned.

It takes a community to produce elite competitors. Very few of them spring
fully developed out of nowhere.

Scott

wrote in message
oups.com...
It seems to me that the tried and true method of developing skiers in
North America and having them race in North America is not working... I
mean, France beat us!

How do we fix the problem?

Some ideas;

1) Have our athletes stay, train and race in Europe during the ski
season. If this is too much of a burden for our athletes, then they
probably aren't committed to being the best anyway. Then, have the
National Championships in March when they come home from Europe.
Nationals should set the team for the following year except for those
who are in the Red Group and automatically qualify for expenses paid
etc.

2) Identify athletes who have no chance of placing better than 50th,
even 40th and leave them home. We can't waste valuable monetary
resources on skiers who just don't have it.

3) Focus on Sprint racing and Marathons. France had a guy named Herve
Balland who would ski Worldloppets and then join the French Team to ski
the 50K at the Olympics and World Championships. He won medals... A
skier like Carl Swenson fits that mold. Certain skiers would fit that
category. Sprinters like Christian Zorzi have proven very effective at
going 10K in a Relay. Lets develop speed first. Skiers like Andy Newell
and Torin Koos should ski everything up to 10K in distance.

4) Identify skiers with huge talent like Kris Freeman and devote those
limited resources to developing them.

Any comments or ideas?

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