Anonymous Rants from Skiers Who Care.
The ski world is small, overly concerned with offending each other and disinclined to look critically at our mistakes. It’s hard to be a skier and call out the things that you wish were better. Enter this column. Every so often (when time permits, of course), we’ll collect bits and pieces from skiers. Here’s the warning: the language is colorful. (Would you paint with no bright colors?) The content is honest (folks might talk about adult themes like sex and alcohol, things that make Lifetime Movies so compelling.). They might also be entertaining, thought-provoking and hence, worth your time. That’s the goal, anyway.
A Qualifying Rant
I’m getting really sick of this qualifier-only sprint format. It seems to me there is some sort of flawed logic behind it. Yes, qualifying is a skill and skiing one-point-something kilometers flat out has its unique challenges. But really? The first two weekends of the Supertour have now had two qualifier-only sprint races (well three if you count the double-qualifier day), and if I read the calendar correctly there are more in store. Last time I checked the medals in international competition were NOT handed out after the prelim, but after (successfully, I might add) skiing three head-to-head rounds. Guess what, folks? There’s a unique skill set involved with that too! You actually have to be able to ski in a pack, pass people and display tactical intelligence – things you can’t really learn skiing all by your lonesome. If the highest level ski circuit in our country is only going to reward qualifying, we are going to encourage skiers to become ONLY GOOD AT QUALIFYING. Five years down the road, we are going to be saying to ourselves, ‘DUH… GEE-UH… Our skiers sure do suck at racing in the rounds… maybe we should have some of those in our sprints too!” It’s not rocket science people; it’s fucking ski racing!
I’m trying to remember why the hell this came about. I remember something about courses – yes, shitty sprint courses should not be on the circuit. The solution to shitty courses should not be to bastardize the sport. I’ve seen point-to-point hill climbs, and marathons, but sprints are supposed to be in the stadium, in front of the crowd, and HEAD-TO-HEAD Action. Sure, let’s grow our sport by robbing one of its most exciting and spectator-friendly events of the actual excitement. That sounds brilliant! Even if there are no spectators coming out, you’re not exactly going to bring them out for a qualifier! The calendar I saw today from last June (because the USSA website is currently so useful in its updated form), even has a night sprint qualifier – now that sounds like a thrill! People, there’s a reason they almost never show the fucking qualifier on TV in Europe: IT’S FUCKING BORING!!
Oh, and there was the need for more FIS point sprints. Frankly, it sounds a bit like grade-grubbing to me. We’ve all been to school, and we’ve all had that one grade-grubbing kid in our class. We had this one girl we called ‘The Grommit’ in college. I hated her. I hate grade-grubbers. She was so goddamned annoying. It was all I could do to keep myself from leaping across the room in a fit of physical violence anytime she opened her mouth… But I digress. FIS points are supposed to represent racing, and while it is an imperfect system, you are supposed to get better FIS points by developing better skiers. Unfortunately, FIS points are handed out based on the qualifier. BUT GUESS WHAT??? The medals are handed out in the rounds! If you want more sprint qualifiers, let’s have more fucking sprints! Only two days on the weekend? How about taking a page from biathlon’s book and doing a Thursday-Saturday-Sunday racing deal? Thursday night sprints and Saturday-Sunday distance races? Or, how about a Friday-Saturday-Sunday minitour? So creative… so new… is it even possible?
On the one USSA calendar I could actually find online, there is only one (one!?!?) real sprint race being held on US soil outside of US Nationals and SuperTour Finals. Are we really this stupid? People, let’s not fall in love with ourselves for devising a way to “cheat” the system, when we only end up cheating ourselves, lest we forget: MEDALS ARE HANDED OUT IN THE FINALS OF A SPRINT, NOT THE FUCKING QUALIFIER!