2009 June

piThe Johnny5 represents the people that changed things for skiing in the US in the last year.  You wouldn’t know it from the endless whining that consumes us in the Spring, but this WAS a solid year for American Skiing. (Capitalized for a reason.)  That didn’t come by accident.  So here they are in no particular order the (roughly) five folks that pushed change in 08 / 09.  We’ll do one a day for the week. We’ll also include some tidbits at the end of the Johnny5 from the nominations that are sure to entertain.  Stay tuned./i/p pHad Andy Newell or Kris Freeman finished second at the World Championships, the long and tired “Does the US suck at skiing?” articles on Fasterskier and throughout various internet sites would likely have been put to rest this year.  Had we seen Noah Hoffman win at World Juniors or even another American male finish on top at the NCAA championships, those might have been decent enough finishes to bode well for the “future” of US skiing.  When people write “US skiing future”, they mean dudes.  At a World Cup not many seasons ago, the head of another (as in, not-US) country’s ski service said on the ski test track, loud enough to barely be heard.  “This is ok- it’s for the women.  We’ll use their data for the real race.”  Inevitably whichever gender shows up first is going to act as a test crew, but to be overt about it is patriarchal, mysogynistic and short sighted.  This makes it tougher for women to succeed in skiing, which makes Kikkan Randall’s results and efforts even more significant.  To the endless ponderers of would-be World Cup success, if you want to improve skiing in the US, read every comment you post considering only the women’s fields.  Do this and improvement will happen in skiing where it is at its weakest: the depth of the women’s fields.  While we have stong examples like Kikkan, Liz Morgan, the depth of the field falls off quickly.  Too quickly.  Who wants to be in a sport where women are so overtly an afterthought?  Kikkan Randall knows this and is doing something about it./p pMore than her World Championship finish (or her World Cup win from Rybinks in ‘08), more than her sheer committment to skiing, even more than her position as the FIS rep for all things female, Kikkan is changing the game by empowering women to revel in skiing.  Kikkan partnered with Chandra Crawford’s a href="http://www.fastandfemale.com/home.html"Fast Female/a group.  Together Fast Female is acting as a rallying point and should be used as a model for the rest of the ski community at large.  Their logo “empowerment through sport” refers to the subjugation that women face regularly and sport’s ability to allow women to rise above sexism./p pKikkan’s outreach isn’t an isolated event.  Andy Newell is known for speaking to a number of high school groups, thea href="http://www.in-the-arena.org/" In-the-arena/a crowd does outreach consistently and with an important cross section of humanity. Yet, it’s Kikkan’s work that could arguably have the largest impact on the future of the sport./p pFinally, there’s the a href="http://www.kikkan.com/blood_clot.html"clot/a.  In addition to just being creepy as hell, the blood clot does a couple of things:  It points out a legit concern that some female athletes a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.kikkan.com/photos/hospital/IMG_3151.jpgimgrefurl=http://www.kikkan.com/blood_clot2.htmlusg=__QBtBQPC5gVyhxv-C-s1YBd8Jwic=h=400w=300sz=51hl=enstart=33sig2=r1xnHcwRGMwfKSfZIZylVgum=1tbnid=_wa8pbpLKkzSpM:tbnh=124tbnw=93prev=/images%3Fq%3DKikkan%2BRandall%2Bblood%2Bclot%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26start%3D18%26um%3D1ei=I9s3Sr7hKdGFmQf2xaGBDg"face/a with some birth control.  It demonstrates that even if you are absurdly talented and do everything right you istill/i aren’t guarenteed anything in the way of success.  And it made a flawless story of overcoming that will rival Kris Freeman’s diabetes / compartment syndrome, whatever it was that Lance had and Michael Phelp’s a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://tv.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/michael-phelps-bong-picture.jpgimgrefurl=http://tv.popcrunch.com/michael-phelps-bong-picture-phelps-apologizes-for-smoking-weed/h=546w=410sz=28tbnid=d3NFXulqHMfGgM:tbnh=133tbnw=100prev=/images%3Fq%3DMichael%2BPhelps%2Bbonghl=enusg=__pORNtXBD1_ISl14QiuEn-e5DVww=ei=cdw3SvjLBsK5lAePuqzvDQsa=Xoi=image_resultresnum=2ct=image"new asthma inhaler/a. By the time the Olympics roll into Vancouver, what Kikkan did this year will translate into more TV time next year for skiing and she only had to suffer her face off for it./p pimg src="http://www.kikkan.com/photos/hospital/IMG_3151.jpg" height="457" width="300"/./p pOne last note: Some of Kikkan’s selection to the Johnny5 certainly should be attributed to her program.  Cult-like and prone to bits of self-revering a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbLVna4Lnpo"pomp/a, APU cuts a wide swath, but the program led by Erik Flora is unarguably one of the reasons US skiing is improving and the nominations for Flora CO were many and justified especially since they remain the only US club with a WC winner in their midst./p

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piThe Johnny5 represents the people that changed things for skiing in the US in the last year.  You wouldn’t know it from the endless whining that consumes us in the Spring, but this WAS a solid year for American Skiing. (Capitalized for a reason.)  That didn’t come by accident.  So here they are in no particular order the (roughly) five folks that pushed change in 08 / 09.  We’ll do one a day for the week. We’ll also include some tidbits at the end of the Johnny5 from the nominations that are sure to entertain.  Stay tuned.br//i/p pZach Caldwell confounds.  He frustrates, cajoles, annoys, disects and interprets.  One could point at the blog Zach Caldwell has kept on behalf of Kris Freeman for the last couple years and count the “if’s” “almosts” and “so close”.  One could also get frustrated that Zach is responsible for every mediocre skier from Bend to Bethel demanding a full quiver of 610s shod with ZR1’s, Q13s and YRMOM69s. (Apologies to Molly Holt.) To be honest, there may only be five or six people that can actually understand most of the things that come out of Zach Caldwell’s mouth when he’s waxing poetic on ski polemic.  (Rumor is that when he took on a partnership, Nathan Schultz received a secret decoder ring that allowed him to actually grasp what the f-ck Zach is saying at all times.)  Yet, to know Zach is to know that he’s captured by the sport in a way that most of us could only posture, which is to say, Zach is really afflicted.  Zach writes descriptions of the minute misses that block Kris Freeman’s path to world cup domination because unlike a lot of people, Zach can see them.  He gives people access to the highest levels of ski prep because he knows that skiing on those types of skis is much more pleasant.  While a love of the game isn’t the precursor to landing a spot in the Johnny5, it is likely the motivation for the other bits and pieces that Zach has offerred up that made him the most nominated person to the list.  So what’s he done?/p p1. There’s the aforementioned ubiquitous ski service coverage of every skier in the US.  FakeFasterSkier, the online shaman, described Zach as “ski Jesus” Face it, in the US, before Zach Caldwell, grinds only happened on skateboards, and at the Junior National mixer. (Apologies to FFS)/p p2. ZC has elite American skiers believing.  Refer back to the Johnny Klister post on the curse and realize this is a big deal.  Whether it’s bravado or too much time sucking flourocarbons, Zach proceeds with very little doubt.  In a recent Newsweek interview  President Obama explained his leadership, “I’m going to make mistakes, but I’m going to keep going forward.  I’m not going to spin my wheels with indecision.”  Barry learned that from Zach./p p3.  Ski companies are calling ihim/i for a href="http://www.bouldernordicsport.com/Default.aspx?tabid=164error=Object+reference+not+set+to+an+instance+of+an+object."advice/a.  Not long ago the US team used to wax their own baselayers after consulting a magic 8 ball.  Now, in addition to a staff that’s working towards better service by never sleeping, they’ve got ZC living like Osama Bin Laden in a cave at the 2010 Olympic venue kicking out the online a href="http://www.krisfreeman.net/"equivalent of homemade videos every/a now and then.   Guess what? It will be harries.  Guess what else, it will be some bizarre version of harries that will be modeled after Kris Freeman’s tears and since Bird has only shed one tear and Zach has it in a glass case in the lab, there’s a good chance, US skis will have kick on the classic days in Canada.  BONUS deed for ZC: He had to leave Vermont.  This is akin to losing an organ for a guy like Caldwell.  Who else has donated organs for US skiing?/p p4. Zach Caldwell made us believe that Nathan Schultz actually exists.  (Have you ever actually seen them in the same room together? )  Let’s face it, Zach’s background is ski geek.  This mythical Schultz character seems a bit of an endurance hero.  It is awfully convenient that Schultz just happened to open a retail shop in Boulder when Zach moved to “Canada.”  And all of you suckers just sent in your money…./p p5. By not apologizing for who he is, what he does and doesn’t know, and by burying himself in the job, Caldwell is setting an example. There’s been a controversy about the All In / All Out motto of the US team.  Zach goes All In All Out for skiing and he can tell you the exact pressure distribution, oxidative stress, micro structure and extreme saturation of each movement./p pDon’t be surprised if you see Zach or Nathan on this list again next year./p p——————-/p