Posted on 02/13/2019 5:02:36 PM PST by DoodleBob
ARE, Sweden (AP) It was a telling sign that in Lindsey Vonns last race there was only one other American skier competing.
Two days later, the U.S. couldnt even enter a squad for the team event at the world championships because it didnt have enough skiers available.
And as for the mens slalom team, the one that produced the likes of Bode Miller and Ted Ligety? Well, thats been practically eliminated.
We are dwindling, Vonn said. I cant remember a time being on the U.S. Ski Team that there werent two or three people that could have taken the four spots (in each race). We always had a full quota.
(Excerpt) Read more at olympics.nbcsports.com ...
she also was Tiger Woods’ official 1000th lay....
There are just some things the Euros beat us at, hands down.
Oh well ...
So could it be that the lack of funding a result of the Obama economy then?
Yep. The Austrians, the Swiss, the Swedes and the Norwegians have dominated alpine skiing for years.
good riddance. i rooted AGAINST her in the last olympics
She generally likes dark meat. Do a search of “lindsey vonn boyfriends”.
Great skier, one of the greatest ever, not dumb but not all that bright and usually nice to almost everybody BUT...just plain lousy at selecting “partners” who have tarnished her brand!
We still have Michaela Schriffin and she’s even better.
I’ve had the pleasure of being around Mikaela and her full coaching staff for a fair amount of time and side slipped a lot of training courses for her. Great crew working with a great girl! In late August of 2017 I was watching Mikaela learning to “run speed”. (Super-G) I turned to her coaches Mike Day and Lindsey Young and quietly said Mikaela will race a little Downhill of but only on courses that favor her abilities but she is going to be a holy terror in Super-G. We all knew the same thing.
It told the story of one day they were supposed to be on the course for training, so it was canceled, and a “free day” and all the other skiers spent a fun day in the powder.
Mikaela went back down to the training center to run through her exercise routine. Which was incredible. I forget all it was, but she did more and longer than anyone else. Even the men IIRC.
Here's the article which I imagine you have already read. Pretty amazing parents and their daughter!
HaHa!...true
oops, another article I recall reading, but not the one talking about her training.
Look we know what she said......are you saying it was fake news?
are both just symptoms that one’s heart and head are experiencing a period
I think shes post-menopausal at this point.
I feel cheated, I thought for sure we could get some video of her slamming into a tree.
Well, there’s always the Claudine Longet Invitational.
Nowhere is it written in the book of life that elite athletes are owed public subsidies for playing games. But if we expect U.S. athletes to be competitive in international competitions, we should at least be aware of what other countries are doing. This problem has been masked for a long time because the U.S. since WWII has been, by far, the biggest of the rich countries and the richest of the big countries. We are the third most populous country in the world. India and China have more people but have been very poor, and competitive athletics are very much a luxury good. Of the top ten countries in the world by population, the U.S. is the only wealthy one; in addition to India and China, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia and Mexico aren't in the same league. Russia has always punched above its weight athletically because of massive state support, initiated back in the Cold War era for propaganda purposes. But most of the big countries are poor. Of our peer group countries, we have two and a half times the people of Japan and four times the population of the larger European counties. That's a formula for winning a lot of medals.
I dwell on this because Americans have gotten used to athletic excellence with a slapdash, jerry-rigged post-college financing system. Post college, we have the big professional sports that are incredibly wealthy due to tv dollars, while everyone else starves. A few champions here and there are visible enough to get substantial sponsorships and ad deals (especially if they're physically attractive and good tv talkers). But athletic excellence can't be sustained on the basis of a random scattering of Wheaties box champs. We need a full pipeline with rigorous competition at every level and a development system that gives adequate support past age 21. As the rest of the world continues to advance economically, the U.S. edge will steadily erode. We can either rethink our support system for elite athletes in non-revenue sports, or we can reduce our expectations for international competitions.
Vonn dominated, and if not for all the serious injuries she suffered these past few years, she would have won many more races. I could not care less about her politics, she was the best female skier ever.
Now we have Mikaela Shiffrin who is the odds on favorite to win any race she enters and is well on her way to surpassing Vonn's historic win records.......
The Europeans definitely have the edge when it comes to cultivating future olympic skiers since their schools actually have ski programs beginning as early as grade school...........
Here in the U.S., the only hope a kid can reach olympic caliber is if their parents are rich and are willing to send them to ski academies which are enormously expensive......
The French were okay for a while, and even the Italians could boast a name or two. But aside from Bode Miller Billy Kidd, and the Maher brothers, it would be hard to name a world-class American alpinist.
Or maybe I’m just behind the times ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.