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#11
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What we need is solidarity and a central organization. Without these we
don't get a lance or the popular culture. The current American ski culture must focus on common goals; such as becoming great ski nation and the proliferation of skiing in our country. Right now there are no obvious paths to greatness. There are high school programs, college programs and some scattered training groups. Few of these organizations work together; some are antagonistic toward each other. Even less have a long-term plan. A respected central organization will bring these disjoined parts into a path to greatness. I believe that the building of this central organization has commenced in the shape of Team Today. I think that this organization is currently in it's youth and my not be the final central origination that brings everything together. We need to support them nonetheless. Definitely with money, but just an important is encouragement. Now, as you enter the end of the "ski year," it is time to make some new years resolutions. Rather than focus on the difficulties of our Olympians. Ask yourself, "what can I do help out?" How can you help your local organizations? Is there a youth ski league that you can volunteer for? Races in the area that need organizational help? High schools looking for more coaches? Can you get the people around you excited and involved in skiing? |
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#12
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I still like Jay's idea of just sending kids to Europe to live and ski
a few years. When someone is in early 20's they don't have too many ties. If they have Oly ambition it would seem to just be a great thing to go live/ski over there. Nothing sweeter! OK, Scandi skiers come here for their NCAA/college education. There's probably a parallel where US skiers could do there for their 20's. --Like that Community College thing that Pete V. did. Isn't this how our core of top bike racers do it? We have quite a few bike racers going to Europe and getting used to the hard life. They maybe work crap jobs, then race their bike. No biggy. If they got talent, they gotta do it. They gotta leave the nest behind. The serious ones seem to do it readily enough. OK, we have a lot of Jrs. Fast forward to Oly-time. How big is our pool of contenders living in Park City at any moment? Offhand, I'd guess THREE. Like, we didn't have a couple dozen each of brawny, healthy, rangy skiers of guys, gals, youngsters, to work on and see who rises up, even over time. Now, I recall a Pete article where he was inspired by the German model: they support a bunch of skiers and just throw em to the sharks and whoever doesn't explode ends up being fast. Well, it doesn't seem like we have enough depth to do that---we have it in Jrs but not in Srs. We have huge fall-off after college, basically. When Becky S. was placing 50th was she part of a pool of potential top Canadian skiers who were all placing 50th? Basically it seems like the US only has a couple guys and maybe one gal who could place top 50 WC. You can't rely on that few of skiers to make breakthrus to the podium. You need maybe two dozen who could be at the 50th level to have one who maybe pops up and out. Maybe. Of course that would only be once a decade at that. Canada hasn't had a Becky in a long time, right? Just ruminatin'. |
#13
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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 |
#15
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#16
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My opinion: The US is unlikely to be a Nordic skiing power for two
reasons. First, there is so little of the nation that has a climate for true winter sports. Yes, geographically there is quite a bit, but in terms of population, very little of the population lives in places where true winter sports, on snow, is part of the general sports culture. Even the major northern cities like Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul - from what I hear, true winter, with reliable snow, is less and less common. The reliable wintery places are fairly remote from most major population areas. I'm talkig about the ability to ski on snow in your own town, around the block or just outside of town. Not traveling somewhere for the weekend. To get an entire population living and loving snow sports, there has to be regular and easy access to snow. People aren't going to have an overall culture of Nordic skiing by training on roller skis - it will only happen if it's like Norway where people just ski for fun, everyone. From that the serious competators come. So the motivation and opportunity for the general population base that enjoys snow sports just isn't there. OK that's the overall problem: you need the large base to produce a few talented individuals. The next problem is that those talented individuals have to be motivated for one or both of two reasons: reason one is fame and glory, reason two is financial gain. Personal achievement motivates very, very few people (relatively speaking) and not necessarily the most talented. In the sports culture we have in the US, neither fame and glory nor fortune is there- because our general population neither skis nor cares about it. They care about the sports they grow up watching or playing: hockey (because it's an indoor sport now, isn't constrained by the winter factors I mentioned), golf, basket ball, baseball, tennis, running, swimming, etc. Nordic skiing because of the climate/geographic factors I mentioned above, just isn't a sport with a mass following. Fame and glory is very obscure for successful skiers and fortune just isn't there in a meaningful way. So, as a life long skier from a northern state, I do not think Nordic skiing will ever be world class in the US. |
#17
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Motives: fame, money. Reminds me of Lance---didn't he switch from
triathlon where he was champ to bike racing because that's where the money was? Gotta get em over to Europe: I recall a story of Bob Roll working as a dishwasher in his early years as a bike pro. Is there a way to be a ski bum on the Euro circuit? I remember in Breckenridge that we rented out the front-hall CLOSET in our apt to a kid. We had like 7 living in this little apt. People did this so they could ski all day where the skiing was best. Makes sense. If I was a kid again and thinking clearer in the head about ski racing, I'd first go to NMU for college and get on that XC team. Heck, I didn't even know there was a college up there in the UP! After college I'd get my butt over to Europe and live and race there. Instead I just followed citizen racing where my nose led me. With zero info. And I suppose I was only 75% ready for the leap anyway. So I became a US ski bum. For a kid who's a touch more ski crazy: get em a one-way ticket to Scandi! Community building: Sure, gotta do it. But did Lance come out of community building or did he come out of KICK ASS...? : ) I think the "take no prisoners" attitude MAYBE comes first. That rallies the supporters. What got Thom Weisel into backing Lance? --Probably Lance's "destroy the world" steamroller. Get on or get out of the way. It seems like maybe we need to find the kids with the unstoppable attitude, the chip on their shoulder. So there's community, then there's "me against the world and I'm gunna win or die trying." Didn't Billy Koch have that bad attitude? He was a longer who raced his school bus on XC skis to get home first. Sometimes I see the coolness of bipartisanship---sometimes I think, Man, someone should grab something like the problem of health care and fix it for their own glory, to show everyone how it's done, to kick ass, to do it even though everyone said it couldn't be done, to show they're better than everyone else, to take all the credit, to win. (And then of course say you did it all for Ma and Apple Pie.) --JP outyourbackdoor.com |
#18
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I don't necessarily disagree with your points. A highly motivated
individual can trump the reasons/trends I gave for sure. But, both Lance (and before him Greg Lemond) and Bill Koch are pretty unusual individuals - not a consistent stream of competitors like the Scandos and the Russians - and now it looks like Canada is starting to have at least some consistent good results. Northern, true winter countries have the culture of snow skiing accessable and easily enjoyed by all, across the board and this results in regular emergence of the best the country has to offer choosing the sport - and then the society which really values the sport giving accolades as well as $$ to that steam of exceptional individuals. |
#19
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Quote:
Also, an excellent example to contradict your statement is about Chandra Crawford. In the pursuit she came 60th out of 64! That's horrible according to you and she "has no business being there", yet a mere 10 days later she wins the gold medal in the sprints. She even was beaten by athletes from such ski power houses such as China, Romania, Korea, Lithuania, Belarus, and even the USA!!! The average skier peaks in their late 20's. We have to allow the athletes to gain experience and if they are restricted to only national races how can they prepare for the World Cup.? The odds of the US producing a Petter Northug is very slim. Therefore you must have them race in the Olympics and World Cups. Sure some might find the results embarassing but it will be worth it in the long run. Look no further than Beckie's and Sara's results in Nagano. Need I say more? Cheers, Adam Smithers,BC Last edited by doogiski : February 25th 06 at 03:45 AM. |
#20
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I don't like this whole idea of limiting ourselves. the skiing
community is becoming cynical because they have too many preconceived notions. USST officials said they wanted the points system to eliminate subjectivity, i think that's weak. there's such a thing as intuition, coaches rely on it all the time. Sure, the point's system is precise, but intuition is also precise. They are taking the easy way out, trying too hard to impose order on what should be an organic, growing process. Every coach knows you can be systematic, but at the same time you have to go with your feelings. You build the system as you go. Dave Inferra, Boulder |
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