This could turn into a cluster. I hope it will not. Tiger and his team are getting into a pattern of having a hard time saying no, and of not thinking through the consequences of some decisions. Think NASTAR and live timing. Not trying to be too critical, but you need to think all of this stuff all the way through. You can't just say yes. But Tiger has talked about "grass roots" since he started the job. Problem is that we all have different ideas. To him it's a program like Ford Sayre in NH, where his skids skied after school before heading to GMVS. Some little girl named Shiffrin did as well. And a lot of NCAA AA's. It can accomdate some serious talent.
I am hearing that this might help keep a hundred, maybe a couple of hundred kids racing USSA at ages 16+ in New York, who might otherwise have dropped it. The kids in the NYSEF program {Whiteface} are generally FIS track skiers. At this age, the huge majority are on snow full time. This NY group is no doubt passionate and well intended. Got it. I also have no clue about high school racing, NASTAR, etc, in NY. Those are opportunities in many states as well, outside of the USSA. But clearly the goal, here was to try to make it as attractive as possible to stay in the sport.
I'm not sure how they drew their conclusions about why kids give up the sport of ski racing, not skiing, at various ages. The ramp to FIS, and in general things getting :more serious" is most often cited. That's nothing new. My kids skied in a very large junior program. Most kids who were not in a ski academy as J3's had quit. The weekend kids who held on almost all were skiing on high school teams, and wanted the extra training for that arena. And it was a tiny group. Kids also just develop different passions.
The picture painted for me is that while the 17M radius number looks nutty to some of us, but it opens things up to include all of the cheater GS skis. It also incorporates thinking of all sorts of tiny hills, throughout the country. Like 300 ft hills. There is no real FIS skiing on the smallest of those hills. There is some SL. But it's largely a NASTAR and USSA world. In that respect I absolutely understand the thinking that requiring the use of FIS spec skis may not be wise. So do not expect FIS level skiers to show up. That is a loss.
Contrast those small areas with the big ones And consider the programs, academies and junior racing in those locations. The Eastern academies, CO, UT, Jackson, the big CA programs and academies, those in the PNW, and more. Like it or not, with the exception of Buck Hill {which a lot of kids leave for bigger areas}, that universe is what for the most part develops most of the USST and NCAA ranks. And they all have FIS homologated hills. They train and host races on the same hills.
Up until now, you often would have the very best FIS racers showing up at local USSA races, for any number of reasons, all over the country. My daughter and son's NCAA teams would always do it at least a few times a year. 14 year olds skiing with 22 year old 20 point skiers and having fun! There are some traditional holiday and spring races that always fill up. It has always been fun. Hopefully it still will be. Maybe more so in SL.
This change sounds to me like it has the potential to just drive a wedge between USSA and FIS racing in the US. There is no reason at all for a serious FIS skier to race on course sets like the USSA is proposing, while skiing on their normal set ups. NONE. It looks to me like it's going to almost be a different sport.
Today, an entry level FIS racer typically gets a start in a FIS race based on their USSA points. There are some slots that get allocated based on year end championship U16 events. Their FIS start position is based on their FIS points. That is frankly the main, perhaps only, reason to have a USSA profile. And, it could be changed. There are plenty of ways to allocate entries. Including the "descretionary" picks. Pretty easy for any region to figure it out, based on their needs. The problem is that it becomes more subjective. That's not new, either. Been some of that for years. Once you're into the FIS pipeline you develop a FIS point profile. Once you've been at it for a while your FIS and USSA points are pretty much the same. At some point the fun for the big guns of racing in a USSA series will be gone based on these changes, IMO. And that will be a loss.
My hunch is that this needs to have some regional focus. It might make sense for most of New York. Or for a lot of other states. I think it will have a negative effect in Maine, New Hampshire, VT, in the Rockies, the PNW, and in the Far West. Before this was ever contemplated, you had the best and most intense programs increasing focus on less racing, far less USSA racing, more specific training, and programming specifically designed to put kids in the USST system or at the top ranks of college skiing.
Kirk Dwyer, the Exec Director of Ski Club Vail, was Mikaela Shiffrin's coach at Burke Mountain Academy. He very often explains that in her pre-FIS years, and first FIS year, she raced very little compared to the average kid in New England. His theory was why spend 2-3 days travel, incur the expense and take 2-4 runs? What do you gain? Why not stay at home, have more and better training runs {time and video them all}, get some rest and sleep in your own comfy bed. There are more and more people thinking that way for the best. Train to peak in your big events. Train and pace with the best. Pick your race starts wisely.
If that's the case, they why on earth would the best and most talented bother to race in this new wave USSA world of sets and cheater GS skis?
When my son was a J2, he often would train with some NCAA guys, who had been and would go on to the USST. Guys who has points in the teens when points were a lot higher across the board. These guys would take about six really focused training runs, replicating exactly what they would race in. They would never ski in ruts, so they would never train in ruts. This guys showed up at about a half dozen USSA races a year. And that is how my son lowered his points to be able to get in any FIS or NorAm race in the country. Racing in races where they had to petition the USSA to use the calculated penalties rather than the minimum 25. Small fields and hard snow. He might have started in the seed in those races versus in the 60's at that point in a Eastern FIS race.
This change might be good for those who have been dropping out. It may have a marginal effect of holding on to some license fees. It just feels to me like it could, depending on how the races actually are set and run, sort of dumb down the USSA races. And if that happens so that the the best just turn them all off, I think the effect will be a bad one.
My strong guess is that they agreed with the very passionate and persistent NY group, and I'm curious as to whether anybody contemplated the potential downsides? Here's a simple one. I run a USSA GS race in CO. The big guys show up. DU. CU, the PG's from Vail and Aspen. These are serious skiers. They are all skiing on full on WC stock skis. So maybe I set it so that they can actually ski it. Otherwise they are never showing up again. The "groove" or track set by those guys, with those skis and their angles is going to be so totally different than how somebody would ski it on a GS cheater that frankly it could be downright dangerous for the later starters. Just an observation.
I think that this will probably be revisited, to that individual states will have a lot of discretion and leeway in terms of how to deal with it, or I hope so. My kids were serious FIS and NorAm racers and they loved skiing in the same USSA races they had skied in as younger kids. With these rules, I think they would hate it. And perhaps the USSA crowd would hate it as much.
I'll stick away from the cost side. It's a very poor sport to try to be competitive in on a budget. Sad, maybe cruel, but true. The cost of a pair or two of skis disappears fast.
And frankly race skis bought at USSA prices are a deal.
Should be interesting.....
