Optional. In other sports, a competitive domestic system has often made up for low numbers.In sports, you need a funnel with a very wide opening if you hope to have a competitive group filter out the other end.
The West Indies cricket teams of the 70s and 80s spring to mind. Or Australia and New Zealand in all the sports they do well at on the international stage.Such as?
Someone should convince the Saudis to form a ski racing leagueI mean there’s essentially no where to go in ski racing. There are very few spots available. There’s one national team, not 32.
$65K? That is doing it on the cheap for high level racing. You can spend close to 100K a year at a ski academy with the tuition, equipment, European training and race trips, off season athletic trainer, etc. I met a guy this winter who stated the same. Sent his daughter, who started racing with the local club development team at 8 years old, to a ski academy in New England for high school. He said he stopped counting when the total outlay hit $375,000 midway through her senior year. She was courted by several smaller D1 programs, but none of those schools offered what she wanted to major in. Ended up at a D3 school, but quit ski racing after her freshman year to concentrate on her major and future career (a VERY smart decision on her part IMHO). The mandatory 2 day per week on snow time was taking up over 4 hours per day with travel time to the ski area and gate training. Plus, there was mandatory dryland training several times a week that happened at 5am in the athletic facility. The ski team got the 5am slot because better times where saved for the university's football, hockey, and basketball programs. This left her burnt out, exhausted, and always behind in coursework for a Civil Engineering major, so she just walked away from the ski team. He has two younger kids, and I asked him if he was planning to get them involved with racing. His response: Hell no! His second oldest son plays basketball for their local school. Cost: $50 per season.We only have ourselves to blame for poor alpine skiing media coverage in the United States. For example, you can add up all the ski academies in this country and the total enrollment is probably less than 1,000 kids. What other sport in the United States costs $65K to participate? Be like Mikaela? No worries as BMA would be happy to clean out your investment account................LOL
Here in the Northeast we have thousands of kids who live within 30 to 60 minutes from a ski area and most of them will never have the opportunity to even enter a NASTAR race.
His second oldest son plays basketball for their local school. Cost: $50 per season.
I have no idea what the fees are to be part of the Mammoth development teams but a friend/co-worker of mine had their daughter in the snowboarding program and I know he didn't even make $100K. They started their daughter snowboarding at age 3 and once she was old enough to be part of the program at Mammoth, she started competing and did well from the get-go. They drove up from San Diego County 3 weekends a month for her to train and compete. They eventually bought a cheap condo to stay in on those weekends. It all worked out I guess because she's now on the national team and went to the last Olympics in China. Chloe Kim was 4-5 years older but part of the same development program.
Absolutely!It is a great teacher for life, though: you learn how to weigh pros and cons, how to plan, and how to sacrifice in order to achieve a long-term goal
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snowboard development team for 9-12 YOs was about $6K for this year.
The "elite" team about $8K
Prices probably don't include travel or competition fees.
Definitely don't include equipment/apparel.
It is through the local public school. The only travel would be getting on a school owed bus and traveling to another close by public school. In my local public school system, all high school varsity sports, band, cheerleading etc. costs are completely picked up by the regional school district for students. I honestly don't know what $50 charge he stated would even be for. Maybe offset the use of a district owned bus for away games?So that $50 includes equipment and travel expenses (e.g. lodging, meals)? Methinks that's not the all-inclusive price per season.
I get what you are saying, but in this guy's daughter's case, giving up an engineering career for ski racing would be beyond stupid. Besides, many (most) engineering majors already have curtailed social activities and adhere to a non-standard sleep schedule just to survive their insane course load. They have to fit academics, lab time, design projects and often internships and/or co-ops into their schedule. Add in travel time to a ski area for weekday training, and you can see why this often becomes impossible to manage.This could mean giving up on a dream class, highly curtailing social activities, adhering to a nonstandard sleep schedule, and so forth.
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(An exception to this: Keely Kelleher's Camp for Girls has a lot of focus on fundamentals and free skiing development before they set any gates. Kudos to her for making this a workable model outside of an internal team structure.)
While the content re: getting kids into racing, cost, etc. is a great discussion let's get this thread back to Miss Shiffrin. There are other threads in the forum that touch on all those topics or someone can start a new one.
Thanks!
From my experience, ski racing can indeed be expensive, especially in the U.S. There are various costs associated with the sport, and smaller market clubs and teams sometimes charge high prices for their events to raise funds. Pursuing ski racing often requires critical thinking and decision-making skills, as well as sacrifices in terms of time and other activities. While it can be a great teacher for life, the cost of ski racing, including the need for new equipment every season, can be absurd. Some families have found more cost-effective alternatives to expensive gear.So that $50 includes equipment and travel expenses (e.g. lodging, meals)? Methinks that's not the all-inclusive price per season.
But yes, ski racing is too expensive on the whole. There are a lot of costs that are inflated, not the least of the guilty parties being smaller market clubs and teams that charge top dollar for their events because they're trying to fundraise via their races.
That said: being a ski racer (and especially being one in the U.S.) is an exercise in critical thinking and decision making, as well as time budgeting. Those who pursue it in high school and college are often tasked with sacrificing certain things in order to keep racing. This could mean giving up on a dream class, highly curtailing social activities, adhering to a nonstandard sleep schedule, and so forth. It is a great teacher for life, though: you learn how to weigh pros and cons, how to plan, and how to sacrifice in order to achieve a long-term goal. These are skills I owe to ski racing - and I'm sure there are others who followed their extracurricular passions and have seen similar outcomes.
The cost is absurd. The "arms race" of needing new equipment every season (or the perception that this needs to happen) is beyond the pale. The various bits and bobs of tuning equipment, clothing, armor, wax, you name it: they all add up and in the great majority of cases they're unnecessary to replace on the regular. I applaud the racing families who've discovered that a $300 pair of racing gloves is less useful than a $25 pair of Kinco mittens (yes, even for racing - use your pole guards, folks!). There are a slew of hacks in this regard that work, but they're not always publicized.
And in terms of all the on-snow training it's a mixed bag. Quality will always beat quantity, but there's also something to be said for having enough volume of well-run training under your feet before competition. The main problem here is that all too many summer ski racing camps have the athletes bashing gates again and again with only minimal work on technical problems - something that summer/off-season training is most suited to accomplish.
While quite a few coaches (and more athletes than would care to admit in mixed company) would rather these camps be weighted toward drills and technical development, the parents often say "we're paying a lot for this camp so my kid had better be running TONS of gates!" And the coaches are often dealing with too many athletes at once (especially at the "all-purpose" camps) so that kind of attention to detail simply doesn't happen. Unless the camps are run directly by teams that have a 24/7/365 continuity of pedagogy, the camp "businesses" hew toward "all gates, all the time" because it brings in the bucks and allows the camps to continue from year to year.
(An exception to this: Keely Kelleher's Camp for Girls has a lot of focus on fundamentals and free skiing development before they set any gates. Kudos to her for making this a workable model outside of an internal team structure.)
And yes, skiing in general is becoming too expensive. If you buy a conglomerate season pass below market rate that saves a little cash but there are still quite a few other expenses: travel (airfare, transportation from airport to resort, food, lodging, etc.), ski equipment, et al. It's venture a guess that most on this site have the means to make this happen every year. Adding in the additional expense of racing and, well, it gets absurd.
As I often tell people: if not for my coaching alpine ski racing I'd likely not be able to afford the sport, or at the very least I'd only be skiing a handful of days each season. I'd probably pivot to XC skiing or just ride my bicycles year-round.