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#1
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How Should the U S Fix Their Nordic Ski Team?
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 |
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#2
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#3
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Touche. France has better skiers than traditional nordic powers like
Finland. Scott placed no better than the 40's at Nagano. |
#4
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#5
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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 |
#6
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Scott Elliot wrote: 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 I agree. Last Wednsday I went to a local club race. There are at least 5 other ski clubs in the area, with a population of about 50,000. There were at least 25 kids there. The other clubs are the same. With a little creative extrapolation, that means that here in Norway on Wednesdays which are popular for club races there are 10,000 kids doing a ski race. How many kids participated in an XC race in the US last week? Even if my estimate is off by an order of magnitude, it still shows the huge number of kids to tap into. That's the secret. Once you get the raw material, the rest is almost easy! Joseph |
#7
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It seems to me like in the US we are fighting a cultural thing. Here, kids dream of growing up to be football and basketball stars. In Europe, it's soccer, cycling, and cross country skiing. We probably have a whole team of top notch elite skiers stuck shooting hoops and tossing around a football. So I think the question is how do we get more kids excited about the sport? Not a short term fix by any means. We need a Lance Armstrong in our sport. Doug |
#8
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you put the finger on the spot there...
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#9
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Scott, you are 100% correct. Development, development, development.
The US has the most juniors, and the most resources devoted to junior racing of any country in the world. We've stepped it up a notch in that respect in the last 5 years. Now we need to develop a clear pipeline and provide viable ways to help talented and dedicated kids stick with the sport and get the support they need to reach the elite level. Because of geography, we need to have regional centers where knowledgeable coaches can work with promising regional talent. There needs to be a signficant effort to raise the quality of coaching. We need to provide education and find ways to share knowledge and resources. We have an incredible number of dedicated, intelligent coaches out there, but until recently, there has not been a big effort to coordinate our efforts. We fleshed a lot of these things out at the National Coaches Conference last September and I dropped the ball in not following up with all of the positive ideas that came out of there. Hopefully with some of the new resources that are coming available at USST, we'll be able to tackle this most important aspect - development. That's how I see it anyway. Any ideas on how to specifically accomplish some of these goals? |
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