While the afterglow of the Olympics seems to have created a patriotic group hug among most Americans, it has also left a trail of frustration among some coaches, competitors and ski area operators. In fact, one resort manager says the U.S. Ski Team’s selection process is so flawed that it may discourage ski area investment in junior development programs and on-hill competitions.
At issue is the mediocre showing of the Alpine Team, where the only bright spot was Bode Miller’s two silver medals, and the Freestyle Team, where the stars of Nagano—Jonny Moseley and Eric Bergoust—failed to repeat their magic. Among the questions being asked are these: Did the best athletes get picked for the Team? And of those who medalled, were they the product of the “team” system—or of individual initiative?
Resort managers also are wondering whether the Games did much to inspire grassroots support for youth development programs. For a ski area, sponsoring Olympic hopefuls with coaching, facilities and travel expenses has the potential payback of a podium medal. This, in turn, can raise the visibility and prestige of the area.
But at Lake Tahoe, where the talent pool always runs deep, there is more than a little disappointment over how athletes were treated by U.S. Ski Team coaches before the Games.
Tough Call
John Rice, GM of Sierra-at-Tahoe, spent a decade developing a moguls powerhouse at his South Shore resort. One of his brightest and most successful athletes is 22-year-old Travis Ramos, who is usually in the top tier of moguls skiers.
When the Olympic season opened, Ramos had third- and fourth-place World Cup finishes and seemed a shoo-in for one of four berths on the Moguls Team. But as the deadline loomed to choose the team, the U.S. coaches exercised their discretionary authority for the fourth-place slot—and bypassed Ramos, the third-place finisher in World Cup points, to pick Evan Dybvig of Plainfield, Vt., who finished in fifth place.
Dybvig tore his right anterior cruciate ligament in November but had bounced back to post third- and sixth-place World Cup finishes. Further, he had a history of doing well at Deer Valley and, in the view of the coaches, was best suited to fill the fourth spot. And, Ramos was recovering from a dislocated ankle.
During the Games, Dybvig was a flame-out, settling for 28th place. A month later, Ramos won second place in the Chevy Truck U.S. Freestyle Championships at Bogus Basin, Idaho. Would Ramos have won a medal in Utah? The world will never know.
Sierra’s manager is convinced that Ramos got a raw deal from the U.S. Ski Team, and e-mailed a letter to the team’s Park City headquarters. “From my perspective you have violated your own rules, and have cast a shadow over the integrity of the process,” he wrote. “I’m very disappointed, and I speak for a resort and community that has been supporting [Ramos’] Olympic dream for 10 years.” He never got a response.
U.S. Moguls coach Don St. Pierre defended the decision. “The team is selected through results,” he says, “and if you start looking at an athlete’s history, Evan kept coming to the top of the list. He was consistently faster at Deer Valley.” The injuries to both skiers, he adds, “cancelled each other out.” Further, Ramos did not show up at last summer’s South America training camp, which hardly endeared him to the coaching staff. “We think we selected the best possible team in view of our mission statement,” says St. Pierre.
The selection criteria established for the freestyle team, which are similar to those of the other teams, says that three of the four slots for each team must be filled by “objective or performance-based” parameters. But discretion can be used for the fourth spot, and there is wide latitude in this choice. Factors can include “recent direction or trend of competition results, attitude and commitment of athletes, physical fitness level and illness or injury.” All discretionary selections are reviewed by a committee that consists of the President and CEO of USSA, the Athletic Director and an athlete representative.
USSA president and CEO Bill Marolt says the criteria have been time-tested, but are reviewed annually. “The system is as fair as we can make it,” he says. “At the end of the day, the coaches make calls that are based on performance and objective criteria. I don’t think any of the decisions have been arbitrary. It is not in our interest to not pick the best kids in every single position on every team.”
Independence Day
Yet there is a growing sentiment that, as dedicated as the U.S. Ski Team coaches may be, athletes are doing better on their own, with their own coaches and their own training protocols. Kristina Koznick of Minnesota, one of the world’s top three female slalom skiers, quit the team in 2000, saying the “one-size-fits-all” philosophy of the organization didn’t work for her. She competed in Salt Lake as a member of the U.S. Olympic Team, not as a member of the Ski Team.
Outside of skiing, snowboarders are adamant that their strong showing in the Games had little to do with coaching from the U.S. Snowboard Team. “Many people have a false impression, supported by ambiguous communications from [the USSA] that America’s snowboarding success is a result of the…U.S. Snowboard Team’s efforts. This is not the case,” says Jake Burton Carpenter of Burton Snowboards. “Of the five U.S. snowboarding medallists at the Games, only one is actually on the U.S. Snowboard Team. Four of the five U.S. snowboarding medallists are professional athletes who qualified through competition ahead of the U.S. Snowboard Team athletes and earned slots at the Games.”
“Snowboarding demonstrates that free enterprise works,” Burton said. “The best athletes train, compete, choose sponsors, and manage their careers as they choose—as individuals. The team system does not work, and is essentially a marketing device for USSA to sell its sponsors and fund its activities.”
Tom Kelly, Vice-President of Public Relations for USSA, took issue with Burton’s assessment. “You would think that as a trustee of the U.S. Snowboard Association, Jake would be more familiar with the athletic community,” he says. “The point is that snowboarding is quite different from alpine and freestyle, and we adjusted to that four years ago.” Kelly said the system allows professional-level snowboarders and their personal coaches to integrate into the team under a variety of protocols. “We created an environment that produced five Olympic medallists,” he adds.
This latest criticism comes as many American ski areas have been scaling back on just about everything having to do with competition. “Apart from a few passionate ski resort owners, most resorts feel that events interfere with their business models,” says Bob Roberts, executive director of the California Ski Industry Association. “We haven’t institutionalized ski racing beyond those who immediately care. Resorts have to look at the cost benefits and ask themselves: ‘Are we better off plunking down a half-million dollars into race development, or into something that sells more products at our stores and restaurants?’”
Typical of the difficulties facing management was Big Mountain’s decision to pass on the 2002 U.S. Alpine Championships, even though the Montana resort had hosted the 2001 event. “We were coming off an unprofitable year,” says president and CEO Michael Collins, “and we were faced with spending $100,000 for the event plus an additional $50,000 to install A-nets, which was a recommendation by FIS. Also, running the Championships drains your people, both staff and volunteers, for 20 to 30 days in advance. There is a burnout level and we just didn’t think that we could do it two years in a row.”
Funding is always a thorny issue, and there is sentiment among some industry executives that USSA should find a way to help finance grassroots ski clubs, non-profit foundations and academies. Bill Jensen of Vail says he has suggested that the team create a “signing incentive” that rewards clubs for providing top-ranked athletes. “You could run it just like professional baseball,” he says. “Give a club, say, $50,000 for an A Team competitor and $25,000 for a B Team competitor.” Obviously, says Jensen, a sponsor at the national level would be needed to underwrite such a program. He says he has voiced the idea to Marolt.
But the demands of fund-raising on the national level are not likely to provide any kind of surplus or stipend from USSA to the local clubs—at least not in the immediate future, says Marolt.
Although he has increased USSA’s coffers from $13 million to $24.5 million during his six-year tenure, Marolt says the weak economy and the fallout from 9/11 have impacted corporate sponsorships. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work and salesmanship to maintain our existing budget,” he says.
Marolt says that clubs already benefit from the myriad USSA programs, ranging from the 40 major competitions that USSA runs each year to educational programs and partnerships that are available to some 350 clubs across the country. Jensen’s suggestion has merit, he adds, “but I don’t see this happening in the immediate future. Right now, the resources aren’t there. Ultimately, a lot of responsibilities lie with the local clubs.”
Still, a recruitment “bonus” would be welcomed by Mike Myer, president of the Big Sky Education Foundation at Big Sky, Montana. Myer says his club consistently loses talented young skiers—often to team sports—because the organization is so strapped for funds that it can’t take its brightest prospects to the next level. He adds: “We’ve been sliding backwards for 15 years. The U.S. Ski Team can talk about education, but for us it’s all about the money.”
Sidebar: A Racing Success Story
Sugar Bowl, Calif., has not only taken the lead in marketing Olympic-caliber athletes, but apparently has found a way to leverage its support of ski racing to help the bottom line.
Though favorite son Daron Rahlves, who lives in nearby Truckee, failed to medal at the Olympics, he’s still a hero to hundreds of local youngsters. Rahlves, who won two World Cup downhill events and the World Championship Super G during the 2000-2001 season, is Sugar Bowl’s official “Ski Ambassador.” The ski area signed Rahlves, 28, to a three-year agreement.
And Marketing Director Greg Murtha used Rahlves at every opportunity to create interest in Sugar Bowl. “He was our poster boy,” he says. “We put his picture on lift tickets, on the front of the trail map and in our ads.”
But perhaps the biggest exposure for Rahlves and Sugar Bowl came through a deal with McDonald’s restaurants to put his likeness on three million tray liners in Northern California.
Rahlves is part of a born-again ski racing program at Sugar Bowl. In 1999, the area hired Fritz Vallant, former coach of the Austrian Men’s World Cup team, as Head Coach of the Sugar Bowl Ski Team. That same year it also hired former Olympian Kristin Krone Vallant, as well as Jim Hudson, a former coach of the Squaw Valley Ski Team.
Under the guiding hand of Warren Hellman, one of Sugar Bowl’s owners and a former president of the U.S. Ski Team, the resort has pulled out the stops to become a force in ski racing. In March, the area co-hosted the U.S. Nationals with Squaw Valley, running the slalom event.
So what’s the payoff? “We are seeing an increase in season pass sales,” Murtha says. “We have seen families pull their kids out of other resorts’ programs to come here. We are selling these people retail, food and beverage. And we may also be selling them some real estate.”
Says Murtha: “We see an upside to this program. We think we’re going to put kids on the U.S. Ski Team.” —KC
