USSA Spokesman John Farra has issued a press release explaining the FIS Olympic quota allocation for the 2009 Vancouver games, which dictates how many athletes each participating country is allowed to bring. Farra explains why the US currently only has 7 spots, how this might change, and the process related to it.
From the release:
“This system essentially rewards highly for countries who have athletes with balanced FIS points profiles. In other words, they regularly enter both distance and sprint races and have decent enough FIS point profiles to score in the top 500 in both disciplines.”
“I have been researching this issue for awhile now, and have identified athletes who can make significant improvement up the list by taking a strategic approach to the remaining races before the allocation list is created on Jan 18th, 2010. The final re-allocation of spots will occur by Jan 28th, 2010.”