Athletes who buy U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) membership and compete in National Ranking List (NRL) events throughout the season will face higher race and membership prices this winter than in previous years. Due to an increase in its own administrative and insurance costs, USSA has raised the price of some of its services, which has some coaches and regional coordinators concerned about pricing entry-level skiers out of the sport. The head tax that...
original announcement that the job title had been changed from Program Director to Program Manager. The context of the new hire (namely, the position’s vacancy for an entire season and the nordic program’s recent budget problems) next led to more questions about the reasoning behind the shift in staff hierarchy, which all ultimately boil down to: What does this actually mean? The difference between the directorship and the managerial position replacing it mainly involves USSA’s...
After operating without a Director for an entire season, there is a new leader at the helm of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association’s (USSA) nordic operations. On Thursday the governing body revealed Joey Caterinichio as its Nordic Program Manager. As the founder and head coach at Alaska Nordic Racing in Anchorage, Caterinichio has built up a wide breadth of experience in the sport. She was a chief organizer for U.S. Nationals when they were...
All American Birkebeiner coverage is brought to you through the generous support of SkiErg. To this day, Luke Bodensteiner, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) vice president of athletics, said people don’t believe him when he talks about what happened at the 1988 American Birkebeiner. Seventeen at the time and coming off a Kortelopet victory in ’87, Bodensteiner had registered for the 29 k in an attempt to defend his title. Everything seemed to be going...
Two rounds of cuts have hit the U.S. Ski Team’s already-reduced budget this spring and summer, increasing demands on athletes, coaches, and administrators alike. According to U.S. Ski Team (USST) Head Coach Chris Grover, the program was directed in late June to trim nearly $60,000 from its 2012 operating budget—in addition to a $30,000 reduction that came in the spring, during the annual budgeting process. The impact of the cuts will mostly fall on the...
For the last two years, the U.S. Ski Team (USST) and U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) have been pushing American athletes to compete more in Europe, citing a need for experience in the cutthroat racing environment there. Belying that push, however, were thousands of dollars in prize money awarded to the winners of the sprint and distance disciplines of the SuperTour, the four month-long domestic race series. Those bonuses—$2,000 for each one, for men...
The International Ski Federation (FIS) will consider further sanctions against the Russian Ski Association this weekend at its autumn council meetings in Oberhofen, Switzerland. After withholding some $185,000 in funding from the Russians at its June meetings in response to a string of anti-doping rules violations, FIS officials will now consider whether to levy additional fines or even strip the country’s membership rights—though such measures are unlikely, according to Luke Bodensteiner, the U.S. Ski and...
With the Sochi Winter Olympics more than three years off, the city still maintains an aura of mystery to most Americans. Not for Luke Bodensteiner, the vice president for athletics at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), who has already visited the 2014 venues twice. Bodensteiner’s first trip to Sochi was with the International Ski Federation (FIS) two years ago, when he helped with a training seminar for some of the initial Olympic volunteers....
After more than a half dozen doping cases among Russian skiers in the last two years, the International Ski Federation (FIS) will consider sanctions against the country at its upcoming meetings in Turkey next week. Under FIS rules, Russia’s athletes and coaches could be banned from participating in races, events scheduled in the country could be cancelled, or its officials could be stripped of voting rights at future meetings. In an e-mail to FasterSkier, FIS...