Disappearing Development

Julia Ford won the Nor-Am DH title.

UPDATE: The original caption for the lead photo stated that Julia Ford had made the US Ski Team in addition to winning the Nor-Am DH title.  In fact, she just missed making criteria, so we won't know for sure until the nominations come out in May.  It's also worth mentioning that a couple skiers are very close to criteria, and depending on what happens with adders and expiring scores with other athletes across the world, they may sneak in and make the criteria based on the May list, which is the list the nominations are made from.

 Lots of great stuff has happened since the last post (almost a month ago... oops).  There was that time that Ford Swette scored a 13 and a 12.  There was that time that Mikaela Shiffrin repeated as US National Slalom champion.  There was that one guy who tore his ACL on the new 35m skis, reported by Ski Racing.  Then there was the ensuing commentary below on that story that pointed in that a few others skiers have already fallen victim to the new skis as well.  3 or 4 skiers doesn't exactly constitute a major crisis, but the nature of the rules and of these injuries does ensure that we'll all be watching carefully over the Summer.  Of course, this all happened AFTER Ted figured out that he's maybe actually faster on the 35m skis than on his old stuff.  Man, this is getting pretty complicated.

And now, it seems, there's no more women's D-Team.  You read that right.  The US Women's Development Team is no longer a thing.  Instead, word is that they've opted to move a few of the best skiers from the D-Team up to the C-Team (most of whom were already on the C-Team, for all intents and purposes), along with the D-Team coaches, and it appears that USSA is leaving it to ski clubs across the country to figure out the rest.

So, women in ski racing, good luck realizing your dreams of making the US Ski Team and trying to ski World Cup.  It's been difficult to get your foot in the door in the last year or two, what with the political roulette and abundant use of Discretion.  Now the door has closed even tighter.  You now have to have under 20 points in SL or GS, PLUS either a Nor-Am title or sub-12 points in the other event (or 22 DH points or 15 SG points) to make the US Ski Team at the lowest level.

The US Ski Team's "Best in the World" slogan has now become a delightfully self-fulfilled prophecy.  To make the Ski Team, you have to already be one of the best in the world.  Nice how that works out, isn't it?  Essentially, if you take a PG year and aren't skiing around 12 points by the end of the year, you're not going to make the US Ski Team.  More athletes will probably take PG years because of the age change (college coaches only have 1 year of FIS skiing to look at to evaluate recruits), but to meet this sort of criteria they'll have to take multiple PG years (like probably 3 or 4).  This is impossible for most people, and since USSA has never looked favorably on college skiing as a means of development, what does the future hold for the US Women's Ski Team?

Right now, the following skiers qualify for the US Ski Team based on published criteria:

Lindsey Vonn
Julia Mancuso
Mikaela Shiffrin
Leanne Smith
Laurenne Ross
Stacey Cook
Alice McKennis
Resi Stiegler

And I believe that's it.  Will there be more than 8 skiers on the Team?  Probably.  How will they qualify for the Team?  It's really anyone's guess.  The blanket of Discretion is big, soundproof, and doesn't let very much light through.  In any case, there has been no information about any sort of women's tryout camp disseminated to coaches or athletes outside the Ski Team, so that integral part of the the equation, important enough to be used for men's C- and D-Team selections this year, appears to have gone by the wayside.

This is disappointing on a number of levels.  First of all, it's disappointing that this is the caliber of development system that USSA feels it owes female skiers in this country.  The youngest person to qualify for the Women's Team was born in 1989, aside from Mikaela Shiffrin, who is a '95.  If you take Mikaela out of the equation (because she's a special case.  Stop denying it), the youngest skier to make criteria is 23-years old.  Given the huge percentage of athlete turnover at the D-Team level in the last two years, this does not speak well of the development system we've been given by USSA.  The response of the US Ski Team?  Cut ties with your development program altogether.  Don't believe it?  Check the status of the NDS in a couple of months.  Word is that it's already all but gone, with regions already wondering, "Who's going to pay for this?"

It's also disappointing that the nomination system has regressed from a clear set of objective standards to a game of politics and discretionary picks.  On first glance, a read through USSA's nomination criteria seems straightforward.  Different standards for different ages.  Seems to make sense.  Except that, starting at the B-Team level and moving down, there's that little bullet that says "Coaches' Discretion."  Get down to the D-Team list and you'll notice that, in addition to Discretion, your nomination only counts towards a selection camp, at which point you are sized up on ability (a subjective measure) and not points/rankings (an objective measure).  It's a fine line.  After all, without Discretion, we might not have a D-Team for either gender.

So, issues with ageism aside, the objective criteria set forth by USSA are rendered almost meaningless as politics and favor take over.  The Criteria guidelines explain that part of Coaches' Discretion is an assessment of "Attitude and Commitment."  This says it all.  If they don't like your attitude, or they judge your "commitment" (in quotes because, really, what does that even mean?) to be sub-par, then they don't have to take you.  This kind of interpersonal assessment and judgement is unacceptable, especially for young skiers who are developing not only as athletes, but as human beings too.  Want to develop an athlete's attitude?  Want to help them learn to be more committed?  Coach them well.  Don't kick them out.

Didn't we go to objective criteria specifically to get away from stuff like this?

If this were pro sports, this would all be fine.  If the New York Yankees don't like your attitude, then you're fired.  Should've had a better attitude.  They're a private business, so they can do that.  But it's not pro sports.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  This is a system that we all pay into at length, and though some skiers are paid with endorsement deals from individual companies, USSA itself is an amateur sporting organization, and as such should be obligated to us, the paying members, to provide equal opportunity for advancement based on a set of objective criteria.  They are not free to hire and fire athletes as they see fit, but it sure seems like that's what's going on.

Incidentally, cutting out the women's D-Team may put USSA in violation of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act.  Specifically, Section 220524, Subsection 6, which states that one of the duties of a national governing body is to:

(6) provide equitable support and encouragement for participation by women where
separate programs for male and female athletes are conducted on a national basis;

Seems pretty straightforward.  Binding arbitration, anyone?


--Lead photo of Julia Ford borrowed from Zimbio.com


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SURPRISE!

Erin Mielzynski, right after she surprised everyone.  This photo is from her blog, which has been amazing lately.

Here's a list of things that have happened semi-recently that have been pretty surprising to me:

1. That time Bryce Bennett won a Nor-Am and scored a 6 in Super-G.  He didn't even win by that much, I guess it just works out sometimes.  He'd been coming on pretty strong in SG this year, scoring in the 20's and then the teens.  But a 6?  Damn, that's low.  He followed it up with a 14 the next day.
2. That time that the women's Ski Team coaches apparently forgot to take any responsibility for the fact that their ringer had some trouble in the Slalom at World Junior's.  Here's a tip: When your team implodes at the big race, don't just blame the 16-year old athletes.  Show a little team spirit, at least in the press, and take some of the blame yourself.  Or not.  "Once you got off the steep, in the middle of the course you go go for it, but you had to be ready to shift gears in the middle. With Mikaela, we gave her everything in the course report, but she didn't shift gears.”  Hmm, yeah, not really what we had in mind.  For the record, here's roughly how it's done:
   
3. That time that Robby Kelley was all indignant that we were giving him a hard time in the Results sidebar (which hasn't been updated in months).  Apparently he found the very mention of advantageous visibility at Panorama insulting, which tells me he didn't read the next item down on the list, which clearly indicates that, regardless of the visibility, if you were a guy, not named Robby Kelley, racing GS at the Pano Nor-Ams this year, you got a beating.  Sorry, everyone, we do try to avoid these sorts of misunderstandings.
4. That time that Head Sport GmbH got pretty peeved about the spy photos of their new boot, which supposedly isn't due out now until 2014.  They spent €1 million developing the boot.  Factory testers are liable to the tune of $50,000 if they "lose" the boots while testing (read: "if they hand the boots off to Atomic").  This is, apparently, top secret stuff.  A clear plastic bag would have obscured the boots enough to make the photos meaningless, to say nothing of a proper boot bag, or (gasp) a cardboard box.  Maybe a paper bag?  Just spitballing here.  Then they wouldn't have had to ask a photographer friend to analyze the origin of the photo (it was a cell phone) to try and ascertain exactly where it came from (it was someone with a cell phone).  The man in charge of the Head boot project also designed the old Tecnica and the old Nordica, among others.  He was also one of the only non-Atomic people to allegedly see the orange plastic inside Marcel Hirscher's "Atomic" boots when Hirscher broke his ankle (apparently Krylon doesn't take well to the interior of a Tecnica shell).  He probably should have known better, but we all make mistakes.
   
   
5. The first time I saw parents at the start.  My how things seem to have changed over the years.
6. That time when Resi Stiegler started 35th and ended up 2nd in a Slalom World Cup.  That was the same race that Erin Mielzynski started 24th and, um, well... she freaking won.  For both of them, it was their best World Cup finish ever.  Resi has been on a long road to recovery and hadn't seen the top-5 in 5 years.  Mielzynski had never even been in the top-10 before.  Also, it was only her 9th World Cup start ever.  Marie-Michelle Gagnon was 3rd, her best World Cup finish ever.  That was amazing.
   
   
7. The men's Nor-Am at Stowe a couple days ago.  What in God's name was going on?
8. That time that the Swedish women went 1-2-3-4 and 10 on the second run in the Slalom at Are.  The winner of that run, Nathalie Eklund, started 51.  If they start to put it together 2 runs in a row, we're screwed.

Photo of Erin Mielzynski from her blog, which is a must-read these days
Photo of Hirscher from sportvicious.com
Photo of Resi borrowed from theskichannel.com


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Sochi's Orwellian/Utopian Weirdness

Recommended reading: Travis Ganong's blog posts about the trip to Sochi

The men's and women's World Cup tours finished a swing through Sochi, Russia at the Rosa Khutor ski area recently, successfully testing the 2014 Olympic site's ability to pull off a big time alpine event.  The place does look pretty amazing, as you can see here on Travis Ganong's blog and on Tommy Eckfeldt's Facebook album.  You can also see the resort in its more traditional Joey/Jerry/Gomer/Gaper livery here.  Looks nice.

But Russia is generally kind of a weird place, and Sochi is no exception.  In 2007, there was no resort.  So they hired Roger McCarthy away from Vail Resorts to come to Sochi and build a Utopian ski resort right from the box.  Some assembly required.  Batteries not included.  And so we are now presented with Vail 2.0, in which I-70 is removed from the landscape, the buildings become emptier, Norwegian XC skiers get detained, and the government uses the Russian equivalent of eminent domain (compensation not included) quite liberally.  So liberally, in fact, that McCarthy left the project in 2008 after some "land ownership issues" came up. 

Whether he left because the locals ran him out of town after he helped the government seize and smash their houses, or because he objected to the the government's seize/smash actions is unclear from what we can find on the Internet.  But anyway, a lot of the locals were/are pretty pissed at how the whole thing went down, as you might imagine.  I wouldn't worry too much about it though, the Russian government has ways of dealing with these sorts of things.

Back to the story.  Vail:

Sochi:

Since Rosa Khutor is only 40 clicks from the ocean, the sushi in Sochi is just that much fresher, too.  The Downhill track looks legitimately awesome, and with any luck they'll find enough bodies to fill the hotels and restaurants for the big two weeks in 2014.  The organizers expect to make about $300 million off the Winter Olympics, and isn't that what the spirit of the games is all about?  Can't wait to see if these guys can pull it off.  Our money's on Russia coming through in style.


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Outdated News, Part 4: Jerry of The Day

Many of you have seen this site already, so we don't need to go into detail about it.  It is worth pointing out, though, that Jerry of The Day is awesome, hilarious, and updated much more consistently than, say, this site that you're reading right now.

Right now, and probably just this once, we're going to unabashedly hijack their thread and pose the question: Who wore it best?  In this case, we're talking about the faux-blue jeans ski pants of none other than Eric Harlow (former US Ski Team coach, now at Stratton) and UVM assistant coach Johnny Davidson (arguably American skiing's favorite Canadian).

Here's the photo.  That's Harlow on the left, Davidson on the right:

And a couple others, so that you have all the information you need:

Who rocks the fake jeans harder?

And while we're at it, why don't we vote on our preferred word for the general public.  Jerry of The Day makes the bold claim that "Jerry" has taken over for the once nearly ubiquitous "Joey" or "Joe Bag."  We've heard some other popular names, including "Gomer," "Touron," and "Texan," depending on what region you're from.  So, let's put it to a vote.  Pick your favorite term, and if you don't see it here, put it in the comments:

What's the proper terminology for you-know-who?

If you haven't yet, start reading Jerry of The Day now, you'll love it.


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Lindsey Vonn is Basically Single. Has Not Registered on OkCupid Yet.

Photo courtesy of Dustin Cook's blog (and cell phone?)

It's been a huge week for ski racing, and not only in our own minds.  Between Ted making the New York Times, Lindsey Vonn getting divorced, Mikaela Shiffrin on her way to being the best (ever, in any sport, for any gender), Bode winning Birds of Prey, and, Vonn winning a World Cup downhill by 2 seconds (Alice in 8th!), AND the World Cup tour staying in the U.S. for a while (check the photos there), this is a great moment in the sun for us.  Is this what happens when the NBA is locked out?  Ski racing goes mainstream?  Awesome.  I hate basketball anyway.

We've been taking some flack this week via email and in the comments for not keeping up with all the goings on.  Sorry about that.  Now that Lindsey is single, we've been trying to get our profile dialed in on Match.com, and have been endlessy hitting "Refresh" on craigslist just waiting for her to post.  I mean seriously, did she not get my missed connections ad?  This is getting ridiculous.  But honestly, Thomas divorced Lindsey?  WTF?  That's like J. Howard Marshall divorcing Anna Nicole Smith.  Or Brigham Young divorcing any one of his 55 wives.  Or The Dude divorcing Maude.  The best email we got had a link to this priceless post from someone who is clearly blogging above their paygrade.  If the insinuations therein (that Parker somehow drove a wedge between Vonn and Vonn) are true, it would make for one of the best stories of all time.

Speaking of "best of all time," you probably saw Mikaela this week too (5th in the second run.)  When Vonn and Mancuso were second year J2's, they were some of the greatest ever for that age, and they've largely lived up to that potential.  Vonn has gone on to become one of the greatest of all time (43 wins puts her at 4th on the all time women's list), and Mancuso is no slouch either.*  If Shiffrin follows a similar track, she could become the most successful athlete ever in history.  Lance Armstrong could be better than Mikaela, IF he could time-travel back to when he was 16-years old and get himself a top-10 in the Tour de France, and then somehow manage to avoid conflicting with his past self as he continues upwards in the bicycling ranks.  That seems unlikely, so here's to the future.

Moving on:  The equipment thing is taking on a life of its own.  It's big when it makes the New York Times.  It's huge when some dumbass emails Guenther Hujara to call him a Nazi.  I mean really, do we need to get all Sarah Palin in here and starting throwing around the word "Nazi" when we really mean "a-hole"?  In related news, it would be great if whoever is running the SkiersPRO Twitter account would reach out for some help on how to put hyperlinks into a Tweet.  Right now, they're just filling my Twitterverse with Twitterrhea.  Here are all of their Tweets from the past 3 days, in order, in their entirety.  See if you can pick out the pattern:

Press release: Alpine athletes' specific demands of FIS
Head boss slams FIS ski change
Bode Miller slams ski officials over new rules
Pressemitteilung: Dezidierte Forderungen der Ski-Athleten an FIS!
Press release: Alpine athletes' specific demands of FIS
Bode Miller slams ski officials over new rules
Press release: Alpine athletes' specific demands of FIS
Pressemitteilung: Dezidierte Forderungen der Ski-Athleten an FIS!
Bode Miller slams ski officials over new rules
Skiing Protest Leads to Cancellation | http://skiers.pro - Ski Athletes Network http://fb.me/QFjgbx7U **

Skiing Protest Leads to Cancellation | http://skiers.pro - Ski Athletes Network http://fb.me/QFjgbx7U **
Press release: Alpine athletes' specific demands of FIS
Head boss slams FIS ski change
Bode Miller slams ski officials over new rules
Press release: Alpine athletes' specific demands of FIS
... ad nauseam

That's a total of 4 distinct Tweets (translations don't count), repeated 39 40 times as of this publishing.  This has gone on since they opened the Twitter account almost 2 weeks ago, and it needs to stop.  Or else all 19 of their followers are going to "Unfollow," and then where would we be?

In other news, double victory today for America.  Bode won at Beaver Creak by .04 over Beat Feuz (both on my fantasy team, thank you very much).  Vonn won at Lake Louise by a margin so large it's almost not worth talking about.  I mean seriously, there hasn't been a margin like that since Andrew Wagner beat up all the new kids at Nub's Nob (sic) back in '06.  After the race, Marusa Ferk Tweeted, "98% of people who were in LL or watching on TV are so naive, because they don't know what is really happening and giving 'smart' comments-NOT."  But then again, she was 3.6 seconds out in 33rd place (and admittedly, it's possible that she was referring to something else, like maybe farting in the finish or picking her nose on camera.)  It was extremely windy, granted, but still.  2 seconds in a World Cup Downhill is 2 seconds in a World Cup Downhill.

That's all we have time for right now.  Sorry about the thumbs, but you have to admit those pictures are pretty great.  Now, back to work.

*Ironic understatement.
**The truth is not really what the headline implies


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Ski Racing Makes the New York Times

Giant Slalom Racers Object to a Mandate on New Equipment ::: NEW YORK TIMES

These days, as the whole ski length debate takes place, and elicits with it a larger conversation about free speech, social media, and the role of governing bodies, we find ourselves at a defining moment for our sport.  So it's nice that one of the world's most widely read media outlets is giving the whole thing some coverage.  Read the story here.  What's the next step?

Happy thanksgiving, let's continue the conversation.

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Newsflash: FIS Under Even Stronger Pressure to Forego Significant Ski Changes

In an email to a handful of head coaches, program directors, and other assorted people this morning, Patrick Riml announced that everyone except FIS is on the same page about what should and shouldn't happen with equipment regulations.  Since the email has since been forwarded to any number of people, we felt comfortable copying the contents of it here:

Ladies & Gentleman,

Hope things are going well. 

I would like to give you an update on the equipment situation after the FIS meetings and more discussions in Soelden.

SRS, Athlete's and the coaches working groups are working together and are all on the same page and will propose only to change the wight [sic] of the ski in general without changing the radius since there is not enough data to guarantee bigger radius will reduce injuries.

The length of women DH skis will also be discussed because of a possible dis-advantage for smaller athletes.

The companies also feel comfortable if this will be approved to produce enough skis to support all continental Cup skier.

The council meeting on november 6th and 7th should give us the direction going forward.

PLease let me know if you have any questions.

Patrick

So there you go.  We're disappointed because the photoshop project we'd been working on, picturing Paerson vs. Hujara in a cage match, might be all for naught.  On the other hand, we're happy that we might not have to go back to 1997.  We say "might" because you'll notice that Riml only mentions the SRS (ski manufacturers), the athlete's (represented by Killian Albrecht), and the coaches working group as being on the same page, but he makes no mention of the people who actually decide what does and does not go in the rule book.  Perhaps we'll know more after the "council meeting" (whatever council he might be referring to), but as of now, things are still in the "will be discussed" state.

In related news, we got an email from a friend who said that during the meeting in Soelden, "Cuche asked all the skiers to raise their hand, then asked 'Benni? Where's Benni? Austria?' Turns out, they weren't allowed to come, robots can't have feelings."  Which is funny, especially given that, as another reader pointed out to us, both Benni and Marlies Schild had posted links to "Keep the Arc in FIS Skiing" on their Facebook pages a while back, but then swiftly and silently removed all mention of ski lengths and radius from Facebook and fansites.  Turns out, their fan clubs run their Facebook pages, and they posted the links after making the logical assumption that any reasonable ski racer would be against such regulations.  Clearly though, somebody in the Austrian federation must have sent out the memo to shut it down and just get back in line.

So, ladies and gentleman, that's the memo from the boss.

UPDATE:  Randomly came across this blog posting from the athletes union.  Had to laugh when I read the statements from Atomic at the bottom, especially in light of the Austrian situation mentioned above.  Best line:

“Studies by the Salzburg University have shown that the centrifugal forces in turns are lowered by the new material. Therefore, we hope for increased safety,” he said.

"New material"?  Do you mean "Gigantic skis"?  Also, just so we're all clear, lower centrifugal forces means that you're actually sucking more.

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FIS Equipment Rules Update: Wading Through All That's Been Said

So much has been said over the last week or so about the FIS equipment regulations that it seemed prudent to try to wrap it all up into one neat little bundle for you, rather than post a new thing every time someone mentioned it (which was exceedingly frequently).  So here you go:

Add Steven Nyman to the List Of Famous (Or At Least Semi-Famous) Skiers Who Don't Like The Idea of 40-m GS Skis.  A great write-up there by Mr. Nyman, and some classic videos to go with it.  Ted Ligety also blogged again with a renewed furor.  He makes some good points, like the fact that in the course of studying the injuries at the highest level of the sport, nobody got input from the actual people skiing at the highest level of the sport.  Doesn't that seem like it would have been an obvious step?

Even the New York Times has covered the story, and they did a great job with quotes from Riml and a number of other ski world rando's.

Veteran racer and Austrian-turned-Bulgarian Kilian Albrecht has taken advantage of his position as Chairman of the FIS Athletes Commission to try and make a statement that reflects what we're all feeling: The new equipment rules are dumb and we don't favor them.  Though many celebrated last week when the FIS "relented" and knocked the radius requirement back from 40m to 35m (30m for women), it's still ridiculous because, basically, skiing on 35m skis is not that different from skiing on 40m skis. 

Albrecht's statement has the dramatic title of "Ignored" and features a pretty well put together graphic of many top athletes on the podium with orange tape photoshopped over their mouths.

Read the statement here.
View the list of signing athletes here.

Also on display is a list of athletes who have signed off in agreement with the posted statement.  All kinds of names there, from Shiffrin to Ligety, Goldberg to Riesch.  Notably absent is Lindsey Vonn, and most of the Austrian men's A-squad: Benni Raich, Romed Baumann, Hannes Reichelt, Mario Scheiber, etc.  The signatures of these skiers surely count for more than, say, Robby Kelley (no offense Robby), and it does make you wonder what's holding them back.  Maybe they're psyched about it?

Warner Nickerson got some great video of what his skiing looks like on 40-meter GS skis.  It looks alright for the most part, until he gets just a little bit out of position coming over the roll:


Warner did a good write up on his blog, one of the best statements we've seen about the new equipment.

Also, does anyone know who Brennum Rutsche is?  He's listed as signing the petition and representing the USA, although FIS has no record of such a person.  Maybe Brennan Rubie was the victim of a data entry error?

We'd love to have you comment here on this site because, well, that's what we're going for in the long run.  However, if you really want to be part of the conversation on this, or just get the full measure of what's being said about the rule changes, you should just follow this thread of Facebook.


Alright, that's about enough complaining, don't you think?  Now the question is what's next?  Do we wait and see what the FIS says in the next couple of weeks?  Or is there real action we can take now?

Anyone?


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Killington Base Lodge Destroyed By Irene, Other Tourists Stranded at Sugarloaf

Hurricane Tropical Storm Irene surprised many people in Vermont with the sheer volume of water laid down over the weekend.  As a landlocked state that's well removed from the Tornado Belt, many Vermonters didn't think they'd get hit too hard.  That, combined with an infrastructure that's ill-equipped for huge amounts of unfrozen water, and, well, you get what you see here.  The Killington base lodge, collapsed and fallen over, with a brook running through it.

Some more Killington area flood damage from Facebook:

And this photo from the Stratton area:

Highly recommend checking out this Facebook album if you want to see some incredible pictures of the flooding from around the state. If you've done an East Coast swing, you'll recognize the names of many Vermont ski towns that were heavily impacted by this event.

Meanwhile, the access road up to Sugarloaf (the only way in or out) was washed out, stranding about 100 tourists on the mountain.  Luckily the weather there is now excellent, so hopefully the golfing is good because it doesn't look like anyone's driving up the road any time soon:

Thanks to Stever Bartlett for the tip.


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Ski Racing Makes It Into Gawker Media, Urine Not Mentioned Once

Olivia Parker's photo is on the cover of one of the most popular websites in the world

Luckily, it isn't often that ski racing makes the tabloids.  Today, though, if you head over to Gawker's women-oriented gossip/news site Jezebel, you'll be greeted by a nice large photo of GBR's Olivia Parker shredding some GS at the NZ Winter Games yesterday.  Not because she did something wrong, but just because they thought it was an awesome picture.  Jezebel gets about 500,000 pageviews per day, so hopefully Olivia is happy about being there.  New Zealand has the second highest number of clicks on the site, after the U.S.

You can see it all here.


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Delta Airlines: Time to Turn Down the Suck?

Click here to see Jalopnik's coverage of the Delta fender bender.

If you're like us, you once had a great experience flying on Delta out of Boston.  Eddie, the guy at the counter, totally hooked you up because he thought you were part of the US Ski Team group that had just come through.  Extra overweight bags AND a tuning bench, all for free!  So you signed up for their frequent flier program because you'd been really striking out with United and thought you'd give Delta a shot.  And now you're having second thoughts.

First they pee on this guys stuff.  Then they charge the good people of the Canadian Ski Team just to stick one bag on the plane.  Then they fly some dude to Germany instead of Seattle.  And now, we've lost a winglet.  A WINGLET for god's sake!  Two Delta planes crashed into each other on the runway in Boston, and one embedded its winglet in the other.  Winglet winglet winglet winglet.

And just like that:  New favorite word.

A Note on Sources and Identity

Greetings readers.  As evidenced by the poll we have running on the site right now, there is considerable angst among the ski racing population about advancement and standing within the USSA/USST system, especially if one chooses to speak out in a way that reflects negatively on that system.  We are concerned because we've been hearing reports and rumors about certain people being affiliated with this site when, in fact, they are not.

So follow this logic:

1. It's written and edited by one person.
2. When discussing potentially sensitive issues with people, I have always come forward and said, "Hey, just so you know, it's me," because I don't want to be a deceitful little rat about this.
3. Nobody has yet come to me and said, "I think it's you."
4. Therefore, if you've gone to someone and said, "I think it's you," then you were wrong; it's not them.

A few more facts:

1. I do not work for any ski club, team, or academy, although I have in the past.
2. Oddly enough, my sources of information and my fact checkers for the Women's Development Team Selection post are personal (not professional) connections that I can trace back to the mid-1990's.  Point being that my past affiliation with any ski club, team, or academy is irrelevant, especially for that piece.

A note on criticism:
There is a difference between criticism and facts.  Criticism is a matter of opinion.  Facts are real events (in this case, put into words).  You can disagree with criticism.  You can't disagree with facts.  Facts can, however, be incorrectly or incompletely stated, in which case we'd like to know when we've done that and we'd like to be corrected.


Thanks for reading.  Please take a minute to cruise around the rest of the site to see what it's all about before passing judgment on what's going on here.  Though the Women's Development Team Selections post has garnered the most attention by far, this site isn't intended to be a forum on one single issue.  If it really is a one trick pony, you won't come back and read more, but we hope to be more than that.  As ski racers, we share a lot in common, but don't share with each other often enough.

Thanks,
-P.C

Roland Pfeifer Is a Man with a Plan

When we first read this article about newly hired women's tech coach Roland Pfeifer, somebody made a fart noise and then we moved on.  On the surface it's a boilerplate profile of someone 90% of us will never even lay eyes on.  Inner monologue:  "Blah blah...Austrian...blah...looking forward to a great year...blah blah blah...Shiffrin...Lindsey...Julia."  Not really that interesting.

But then we read it again and noticed the part where Pfeifer says, “We need to make them ski relaxed. We need to bring some fresh motivation and fun into the team... We need to convince them of what we are doing and we need to talk a lot, and train a lot.”

Whoa.  Wait a minute.

Didn't you think it was sort of extreme when he said "fun"?  I mean seriously, "We need to convince them of what we are doing."  Really, what kind of quack is this guy?  You call that a coaching methodology?  What ever happened to "Because I said so."?

And Mikaela?  Well, he had this to say:

“I’ve got this unbelievably talented and gifted Shiffrin. She is skiing like a grownup already... I’m not putting too much pressure on Mikaela because she is 16 years old, I’m not going to set any goals for results, just to qualify top-30... She shows really good skiing, I like the way she skis and I like her. I’ve never met a 16-year-old that knows so much about skiing and she loves it. ”

Um, Roland, shouldn't he be bossing someone around?  Aren't you going to get all Donald Trump on us and kick somebody off the team?  Or are you just going to be all nice and positive and Tim Lepard?  Jesus, Roland, it's like you're taking coaching cues from Phil Jackson or something.  Don't forget, just because Phil is one of the most successful coaches of all time (ever, in any sport) this isn't basketball!  This is ski racing!  Get real!  Maybe what he meant to say was, "This is a critical year for these girls and they really need to live up to the expectations we put on them and show us that they're worth our continued time and investment.  We'll see if Shiffrin can live up to the hype, but at 16 she's already a little behind the development curve."  Maybe the new hires haven't had a chance to get through the media training yet?

Alright, well that's our sarcasm quotient for the day (no, actually that's probably not true), and maybe those jokes are a little unfair, but, well... start your own blog.

For real though, it's nice to see that kind of philosophy stated outright, especially for the women's team.  There's a lot of talent on that side, and it would be great to see the continued development of athletes like Duke, McJames, Stiegler, and Shiffrin (and a resurgent Schleper, too).  It's easy to rest on your laurels when you can point to huge success stories like Vonn and Mancuso, but it's the true champion's mentality to continue to work on development, even when things are going well.  It's also nice to see someone with clear and logical standards for measuring where the athletes can be.  There's none of the sweeping cliche of "Best in the world," or "Win Olympic medals and World Cup globes."  It's clear: Schleper and Resi can make the top-10 and get on the podium, and Hailey and Megan can be consistently in the top-30.  And in Pfeifer's words, those are all things that "we" need to do (emphasis added).

This looks like a good move by USSA/USST and it would be amazing to see Pfeifer continue this tone with the women's team, and to follow through the season with it.  Does he have the necessary faith in the process?  Do his bosses have that faith?  Time will tell, but the initial signs are promising and we're really psyched to see what the future holds for women's tech.

And, in case you missed the Tim Lepard link, you owe it to yourself to watch this:






Photo of Roland Pfeifer from the VSV website.  Auf Deutsch!
Bode video from Nike.com, way back in the day.

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Update: Comminques Regarding Women's D-Team Post, Part 2

We've had quite a bit more commentary in the last few days regarding the analysis of the Women's Development Team selections (or, more accurately, the non-selections).  For our own sake, we should say that some of the comments on the page take a tone that we're not entirely comfortable with.  While we're hesitant to give the program administrators the benefit of the doubt here, there's no need to revert to name-calling.  In case you missed it, here's some of what was said:


One Anonymous commenter rumored that non-funded athletes are not allowed to use the USST or USSA name in their fundraising efforts.  We don't think that's correct, at least not to any meaningful extent.  You won't find Bill Marolt or Walt Evans prowling the wares at your silent auction or golf tournament looking for any sign of the logo.


Roger Brown, a Dartmouth graduate and former member of the B-Team, wrote in to educate us:
"Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible. (From wikipedia - for what that is worth)

"So yes, calling the U.S. Women's D-team totalitarian was certainly hyperbolic, but not totally incorrect in my view. We should keep in mind that there is not a particularly public application process for for USST and USSA staff positions, and no input from the greater USSA community on those hirings; no appeals process for team selection decisions (and no independent board to appeal to if there were); and little input solicited or given on other major decisions at USSA (race sites for one thing).

"That said, a closed system isn't necessarily a bad system (the Red Sox don't take a lot of input from the public either...) and might be the best way to run it given the circumstances."


Another communicator, who wished to remain anonymous, noted that his daughter (who is on the D-Team) had actually established a good relationship with Seth McCadam and felt that she was already beginning to move along.  While he did note some shortcomings with the D-Team program's 4-event focus, he did not feel that everything was all wrong all the time.


And there was another milestone when we received the very first comment from an Anonymous user who disagreed with the facts as stated.  The comment appears to have been subsequently deleted from the page, though we didn't even think that was possible by anyone but us.  Nonetheless, we don't see anything wrong with republishing it here since it was submitted anonymously:

"Journalism 101. There are always two sides of every story. The unnamed author of this blog has an obvious bias toward the girls who did not make the team and against the ski team coaches who made the decisions. In order to be fair..., we should also be informed of the accomplishments of those who did make the team and what the thought process of the USSA coaches was in naming them to the team and why. Maybe there are other circumstances, criteria and factors that come into play that the author is not aware of. I don't know and that's my point. Without more information from other perspectives, presented in a unbiased manner, I'm in no position to judge. As presented, this is nothing more than irresponsible and damaging rumor mongering. We should be analyzing and acknowledging the hard work of those who did make it, and the coaches working hard to build a successful team, rather than trying to sabotage them all with unsubstantiated controversy before they even start. The author's bias and personal criticisms of the coaches leaves me wondering if he either knows or coaches one of the girls that didn't make the team. Let's see, which ski academy...hmmmmmm. "

There are some good points in there, so let's pick them out:
1.  Journalism 101, indeed.  Well played, sir.
2.  "The unnamed author of this blog..."  Yes, that's correct.  See: the poll results on the upper right.  Whether or not it's real, the perception is that criticism will be held against you by USSA, or that you are at least risking some kind of indirect retribution.  Ironic, isn't it, that the comment was submitted anonymously as well.  Looks like we're all sort of hedging our bets on the whole identity thing, aren't we?
3.  "We should be informed... what the thought process of the USSA coaches was..."  We agree, and we wish you the best of luck with your quest.  Parents of these kids (yes, they are kids, no, they are not professional athletes) have found it nearly impossible to get straight answers from anyone at USSA about how or why decisions are made.  The answer is usually very oblique, though when pushed it often comes out to something like "That's the decision, take it or leave it, it's done."  Have we, ourselves, asked?  No we have not.  But it's reasonable to guess that, were we to ask USSA or the coaches to justify their exclusions, we would be roundly rejected.  Note to USSA:  If that's not the case, please let us know.  We are interested in, and capable of, civil discourse.  Notice that we have no interest in them justifying the athletes they did include.  This is not a question of why so-and-so got named to the Team.  It's a question of why someone else didn't get named to the team.
4.  "As presented, this is nothing more than irresponsible and damaging rumor mongering."  Just to be clear, this article was fact checked by a number of different sources from both inside and outside the US Ski Team.  If you, or someone you know, has information that isn't presented here, or if you know some of this information to be factually incorrect, we need to know that.
5.  "The author's bias... leaves me wondering if he either knows or coaches one of the girls that didn't make the team. Let's see, which ski academy..."  Take your pick:
Caston: Park City
Berther: Snoqualmie
Samuels:  Rowmark
Samuelson: Ski Club Vail
Mounsey: Snoqualmie

So it must be Rowmark.  Okay, I give up.  It's me, Dave Kerwynn.*

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*Just kidding.  It's not Dave Kerwynn.

Insane Post-Surgery Scar Photo From @JulianLizeroux

What Lizeroux tweeted as a "small present" is actually a monster scar following surgery on his quadriceps. We can't remember which leg he injured, and we can only sort of tell which leg this is by looking at the picture. Here's wishing you all good health.

Cringe.

Photo linked to in Lizeroux's twitter feed.

There IS Such a Thing As a Dumb Question

Like many of you, we check out SkiRacing.com on a daily basis. There's some great material on there, though we preferred the print version more than the new digital standard. But, as I'm sure many of you would agree, not everybody is right all the time.

This is a screenshot from the poll on the front page of SkiRacing.com. 

Give me a break.  Is this where we've ended up, after the most successful US women's teams ever?  Really?  Is this how we can grow and develop women's sports in this country?  "You've done some great work out there ladies, but we also will be evaluating you on your physical appearance and the extent to which it stimulates our sexual sensibilities."

I mean seriously, if the rednecks at Nitro Circus (who are, by their own admission, "testosterone driven") can get it pretty much right, why can't we?

Hey, Ski Racing, you're doing it wrong:




Note to the editors of SkiRacing.com: If traffic is down, try writing about something like national team selections. There is no need to swing so low as asking who we'd most like to make out with.

Lizeroux Out for 2012

Julien Lizeroux might be a sexy beast, but that doesn't mean he's super human.  The handsomest Frenchman since Killy tore up his knee in January of last year.  The report now is that he's had some complications with ligaments in his quad, or something like that, and he'll miss 2012.  Somebody should hire this guy to commentate.  Based on his past on-screen performances, it's obvious that he has a distinctly French knack for being charming and also just offensive enough for you to want him (or want to BE him) even more.

Also, Ski Racing Magazine knows how to use Cut and Paste.


Photo can be found at sportsnet.ca, who wrongly reports that Lizeroux is a Slalom and nordic combined champion.

If You Can Read Norwegian, Please email Me

The cryptic message from Warner, attached to the forwarded email, says "Long story short, I went to the Norwegian equivalent of the Golden Globes on Friday night with this really kickass girl."  Somebody please tell us what the hell is going on here.  All I can read is "New Hampshire."

And we're back...

Took a little break there (as we all should have) to regain perspective on skiing and life.  Spring is a time to try some new things and meet some new people who don't know or care a thing about single pole Slalom, sidecut, canting, or whether or not Vonn paints her old Rossignol boots to look like Heads.  When it's all said and done, you realize that those new people are losers, and that it's time to get back down to business.

Incidentally, our exhaustive research indicates that while she, or more likely her husband, often tapes over the rivets and hinges on her boots, they most likely do not go so far as to put actual paint on them.  Although this Austrian lady actually might have, and if she did, then she did a crappy job.

These are pictures from some of the races in question.  You decide.

Zoom in to see the tape on this one.

Possibly more of a matte finish here?

Meh, probably not:

Photos courtesy of some stalkers in an Epicski.com forum thread entitled "Is anyone else getting pissed/annoyed at Lindsey Vonn, or am I the only one?"  The Pistenchef is not annoyed.  Thomas Vonn is widely regarded as a disciple of the squirrel, but this is probably over the top.  Although, get a load of those plates.  Do yours look like that?