A deeper dive into the suggestion there's a lack of support for U16/U19 athletes outside the East will reflect this is simply just not true. And frankly, with or without Tiger at the helm, the East continues to lag behind Rocky and West from a development standpoint.
If I were to rewrite the quoted sentence it would add "If you're a talented U16 or U19
in the Eastern Division and
not racing in New England...," but there is a developmental lag, without a doubt.
Part of this is likely due to the fact that there is a far denser USSA licensed population in the Eastern Division and the same amount of funds given to western divisions. Same money parsed among more athletes and... well, you can see where that ends up.
Also there's the elephant in the corner of the room: speed training, or lack thereof. The number of truly great homologated speed tracks in the east is amazingly tiny and getting smaller as resorts and/or programs let their homologations lapse. Speed
is dangerous and requires extra safety measures, for sure, and there's increased liability for any ski area that is home to a homologated trail.
But this leaves athletes in the east starving for regular, high quality speed training and competition opportunities. The super-G events held in the east are, by and large, disappointing compared to the competitions held in Rocky, Intermountain, Northern, PNSA, and Far West. And downhill? Fuhgeddaboutit. The track at Sugarloaf is great, but is it the same caliber as anything in the west? Not really. The homologated track at Whiteface, Skyward, is fine but also not a big challenge compared to the tracks in the west.
So yes, there are discrepancies and the east still has to fight for the funding from the mothership. There's no lack of coaching talent of high level programs in the Eastern Division, but distance from Park City still hurts them.
And, based on the Shiffrin model of success, Mom's L100 status is absolutely irrelavant. She has coached her daughter throughout - to be the greatest female SL skier in history. If mom was a 'level 0' her results as a coach must still be lauded and mom's involvement proves to be a necessary part of the environment.
Yes, Eileen is part of the puzzle that is "Team Mikaela," and that's fine. But most - if not all - coaches within the USST Alpine system are at
least a Level 300 out of principle. Eileen has been given a pass because she came up with her daughter, first as chaperone and now as a key piece of the puzzle. Remember: MS was evolving toward traveling without her Mom as part of the team at the start of the 2019-20 season. When Dad died, it sealed the deal to have Eileen continue as a full-time presence.
There are a lot of things with Eileen's presence that seem off, especially that she insists on getting as much funding from the USST budget as possible. This is where the whole "Team Mikaela" model really rankles many USSA dues paying members. When the USST had "team of one" setups in the past, many of these athletes sourced the extra funding needed to make this happen from external sources (mostly their top-tier sponsors). The Shiffrin setup is doing it the other way around, trying to source as much funding as they can from the USST budget. This takes away from
every other athlete on the USST - and especially B Team members who are qualified to compete on the World Cup and Europa Cup circuits yet have to pay a ton of money out of pocket because the USST says "sorry, we're all out of funding."
And all of this evolved under the eye of Tiger Shaw and his immediate support staff. It happened without question because Mikaela is the once-in-a-generation
Wunderkind who wins all the time. And as she wasn't as free spirited as Bode Miller, she fit the mould of the All-American Good Kid™ who can be held up as a role model, sell pasta, etc. Tiger being one who has never rocked the boat, he let it slide and the USST board similarly let it slide.
There are a lot of us with skin in the game (albeit at a lower level) who saw the millions of dollars being thrown at a few A Team athletes and their entourages resulting in funds not going to development at the lower levels. In essence: the Little League team was being suffocated, the minor league team was being told to do more work with less money, and the tip-top elites were given the keys to the corporate jet. Optically it may work for the generic viewer who only tunes in for the quadrennial IOC showcase, but it also leaves the future of alpine ski racers in the U.S. scrambling to find ways to make things work.
And what it does more than anything else is cement ski racing's reputation as a sport only accessible to those with deep pockets. As such, we won't see as many skiers like Bode Miller, Phil and Steve Mahre, Cindy Nelson, Picabo Street,
et al, unless they find a benefactor in the form of a scholarship to an elite ski academy. Otherwise, they won't be able to keep up with those who have the means to fund the year-round training and its inherent travel costs, the fleet of skis (sponsorships aren't what they used to be in this regard), the coaching both on-snow and off, etc.
U.S. Ski and Snowboarding has its work cut out for it in finding a new President who can face these realities head on, with candor, and with an eye toward expanding the accessibility of all sports under the USSS umbrella while expending the access to funding (and raising more stable funding) and, to
@Primoz's point, still maintain a constructive relationship with the FIS. It's
not an easy position to fill, and it will require a leader who is willing to get his or her feet wet and/or muddy, willing to get bludgeoned by the press and by the membership, is willing to be an active and empathetic listener, and willing to take strong stands where necessary.
Yes, the current USSS Board of Trustees is a big spanner in the works in this process, but hopefully they can see the forest for the trees and realize that staying their current course will not stave the bleeding that's already happening in the junior development ranks and is forcing some real talent to abandon the sport. Hopefully somebody is pointing out that the emperor has no clothes and that they need to work to re-energize and grow their ecosystem.
As i've said many times already: we shall see.
Just my $0.02 - YMMV.
