Comments on: Andy Newell to Compete in 2010 Tour de Ski

By: dougherty.andrew

dougherty.andrew — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:06:18 +0000

I really like the idea of combining Junior and Senior Nationals, but how would NCAAs fit in?

By: crashtestxc

crashtestxc — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:19:06 +0000

Good points everyone. I especially agree with what Mike noted. It is smart to field the fastest team at a particular point, but the qualifying and U.S. nationals would be much better being at the end of the season. It would be much easier to work towards those final races at the end of the season, rather than having them at the beginning. It would be nice to see a more centralized location for US Nationals as well, AK is a little far!

Put more emphasis on the SuperTour Races and base the decisions off of points, rather than a few races. It was kind of a joke when the U23 and WJ Sprint teams were decided on “before” the sprint race!!! Sheesh…

By: Reese

Reese — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:08:19 +0000

So you actually listened to me when I said you should sack up and be the first American to do it? Nice… mega props!

By: Cloxxki

Cloxxki — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:18:23 +0000

As a European Newell fan, I look forward to “seeing” him compete in the Tour field.
But, setting all these logistics up, getting a starting bib for something so big, and then in advance saying you’ll only do the first four races (1 short prologue, 2 sprints, and one distance as I understand?) seems a bit half-asses, for the effort and commitment it’s said to be.
Sure, it may be an Olympc year and all, but why not wrestle yourself all the way to the alpine mountain top a the finish? I’m not much of a bike racer anymore, but the first week of the Tour De France, I would not HAVE to be dead last. But that’s not the point. If you’re a young sprinter, sure, see how far you can take it (7×200km). But as a pro skier, no rookie, is a week’s skiing really too much? Would it SO hurt Newell’s prospects further into the season, if not just boosting his stamina for the longer sprints?

By: caldxski

caldxski — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:26:18 +0000

It’s not clear to me when the FIS went to this quota system. Does anyone really know? I have been trying to find out because when I was on the FIS CCC things never happened very fast and so it’s hard for me to believe they suddenly dropped this little bomb.

By: davord

davord — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:20:44 +0000

Good points Mike. I think there should be more opportunities throughout the race season for both juniors and seniors to pick up points for gaining a place on a team heading over the Europe, be it the WSC, Olympics, J1, etc. Spreading out qualifier races throughout the the country might be good, in my opinion, because that could help everybody as regards to altitude (which was a concern in the past) and being closer to home for some teams, but then again that would be hard with all the travel and cost would quickly be adding up.

Putting most eggs in one basket for Nationals is hard to do every year for most people. My opinion is that perhaps there should be a bigger emphasis on SuperTours throughout the year. It’s good that a SuperTour winner gets to race the spring world cups, but for WSC or Olympic seasons, there has to be more opportunities than just US nationals and relying heavily on a couple of races in deciding a team. This is a way that teams such as Norway, Italy and Russia do it. In Norway you often see different people skiing in different world cups. Russia has two big sprint teams and two big distance teams competing this coming weekend. One half is in Beitostoelen, and the other one is in Muonio. Yeah, yeah I know it’s Norway and Russia and I know that they have a lot more trees to choose to pick the apples from, but there is no reason why we can’t have this in the future. I think by sort of enabling more racers to have more chances to race and have more opportunities to qualify and show what they are made of will go a long way in establishing a nice core of competitive skiers heading overseas, rather than just having a smaller group of national team skiers going abroad. At the end of the day, our national team could also grow and that will have a trickle down effect, more money will be poured in, more interest, etc., if you know what I mean.

We have made significant inroads the last couple of years as far as international success goes and it should continue to improve, but we also have too many talented and motivated skiers who will not get to strutt their stuff when it really matters.

Regarding the number of skiers we are able to field for the Olympics, that is just bogus decision making from the FIS. If you are gonna make a decision like that, fine, but don’t make it just a few months before the olympics, good riddance! Why didn’t they say this right after Torino or that summer at their meetings? So they only want to have 40 men and 40 women in every event? Had they made this decision some time ago, more federations (including the US) would have had more time to make the needed adjustments to give every possible contender in their country a decent chance of reaching their goal and fighting for the medals, thus you would have more people under that points quota and the top 300 FIS ranking. I am not saying that everyone who goes to the Olympics has an excellent shot at the medals but I am also not saying “I don’t want to see” 90 skiers within 5 minutes of each other in a 50km race.

FIS has to realize that they are making more favors for the more stronger teams, and that is not the way to expand interest in ski racing in the throughout the world. Heck, let’s just have the Red Sox or the Yankees play the Dodgers or the Cardinals in the WS every year and forget about the regular season and all the other teams. (Actually that may not be a joke, since the MLB seems to really want that!). FIS might might be trying to do the same thing for all I know.

By: Patrick Stinson

Patrick Stinson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:44:10 +0000

So cool, Andy. I’m psyched for you that you get to go check out the newest coolest series for skiing! Best of luck out there, can’t wait to hear about it.

By: Mike Trecker

Mike Trecker — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:27:55 +0000

Sweet! I love the Tour de Ski and am psyched an American is racing. I really think the U.S. needs to re-asses their current schedule to allow more participation in the Tour.

Seeing as there really isn’t a ‘tryout’ per se at U.S. Championships in January, and seeing the cost of the sport rise and rise. Wouldn’t it make sense to scrap the nationals in the middle of the season, combining with J.O.s in the spring? This would allow the top U.S. athletes to stay in Europe rather than coming home for the nationals and would also prevent the top juniors from having to travel to major championships twice a year.

I can hear the junior coaches yelling about the JWC tryouts and the Scando Cup, but honestly, there should not be one method of making a team as a junior and another method once you’re a senior. Let’s either have a system of real tryouts or let’s universally chase points, but not both. The best juniors need to get their FIS points in order anyway, let’s just get them to chase the best points like always and choose the junior teams based on that, just like the big boys.