2005 April

By Torbjorn Karlsen, with contributions by John Aalberg and Cory Smith Thanks to everyone who contributed to 'The Current State Of US XC Skiing' discussion. It’s great to see that we can have a nationwide forum like this. Maybe we can make this an annual event: a season wrap-up here on Fasterskier.com by the USSA staff, the regional head coaches, and the most successful club coaches. It would help to improve communication and make sure...

USSA Cross-Country is, in practical terms, a staff driven organization. The volunteer (political) committee structure is in place, but is pretty much non-functional in terms of an ability to change or implement any new policies, directions and priorities. The committees get together once a year to go through a standard agenda, without including time for (prepared) discussions such as the one we’ve seen here at Fasterskier.com. There is hardly any committee work done, or any...

Thanks to Fasterskier for hosting this healthy discussion and thanks to all of you that participated. In reading through the responses there are a few things I would like to comment on. I will try to summarize some of them and come up with my view. Topics are not in any particular order. 1. It takes lots of hard work and a large group of talent to succeed. This is self explanatory. Even Norway is...

Editor's Note: FasterSkier will wrap up this discussion with one final article tomorrow. If there’s one thing that can be gleaned from the postings this week, it’s that there’s a strong desire to develop athletes regionally and locally. This, of course, is neither a novel idea nor a revolutionary strategy. Local development has happened in the past and continues today in many different ways across the country. This collection of clubs, regions and coaches is...

Thank you Fasterskier.com for this opportunity to express concerns regarding the development of skiing here in the U.S. I have read many good opinions over the past few days and I would like to thank all of the individuals who have contributed several constructive ideas for change. We all know one thing for sure and that is the NGB for skiing USSA has over the years not been able to establish consistent funding. The inconsistent...

Thank you for all the positive feedback, the constructive criticism and the good ideas. I thank you also for the opportunity to be heard and to share our own ideas and vision with you. For my part it is especially exciting to share our idea of the XCNDS. Just because this discussion is closed here at Fasterskier does not mean the doors are closed to communication. Keep the ideas flowing. For me it is not...

Challenge: Assessing and Improving The Development of US Cross Country Skiers By: Jim Galanes Contributor: Jon Quinn-Hurst Written during the winter of 2005 "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Albert Einstein At the present time there is an immediate and pressing challenge facing the Nordic ski community in the U.S.  We must take immediate steps to improve our development system if we hope to become a major power...

Editor's Note: Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. We will be wrapping it up in the next couple of days with a final response from the US Ski Team and our own thoughts. Feel free to continue posting your own comments at the bottom of each article. Many new comments have been added recently, so we encourage you to browse through all of the “Current State of US Skiing” articles (at...

These are some of the comments we have received from readers about our discussion of US skiing, including thoughts from Eli Brown of Fischer Skis. Many people have also been posting comments at the bottom of each article in the series, so if it has been a few days since you read the article, we recommend you go back and read all the comments as well. All articles in this series can be found in...