ADVENTURE SPORTS BY WINA STURGEON 1/01/08
STAR RACER OUT FOR SEASONTop ski racer Risi Stiegler was starting to have a great season; until the World Cup giant slalom at Lienz, Austria.
Stiegler's skis touched at the apex of a turn, and she went down. A World Cup race is supposed to have two sets of sturdy netting to protect racers, the A-net, held up by thick poles set so firmly into the snow that the net won't move, and the B-net, which holds the racer on the off chance the first net gives.
In photos, there were no thick stakes holding up the A-net, just flimsy looking thin poles that looked like the kind used for non-impact barrier fencing.
Stiegler slid through both sets of netting and into a tree. She broke an arm and the fibula bone in one leg; tore knee ligaments and suffered facial abrasions. She will need surgery, and her season is effectively at an end.
Organizers refused to take blame for the lax netting, saying the FIS jury had declared it safe and dismissing the incident merely as "tough luck" for Risi. Yet this was a GS, not a downhill, where the forces of high-speed skiing might compromise protective fencing under a hard impact. It follows another woman's race where new snow had only been slipped smooth along the actual course line. Two racers who went slightly outside the line hit the soft snow and went down. Both were injured. The women racer's complaints were also ignored.
Is there a problem with the FIS oversight of women's courses? Do organizers take less care preparing for a women's World Cup than for the men? Stay tuned; ASW is working on finding the answers.
HOW APOLO PLAYS THE PRESS
When Apolo Ohno won the 1500 meter short track Nationals with his typical last-second, come-from-behind move, a reporter asked him about the actual technique details that allow him to win many races this way. Ohno smiled, shook his head and said, "I can't tell you that. It's a secret!"
When another reporter asked the dancing star skater about his percentage of body fat, Ohno smiled and shook his head in the exact same way, saying "I can't tell you that. It's a secret!"
Does Apolo really want to keep these facts secret? Or is he just playing with the press?
U.S. SKI RACERS HAVE TO PAY TO RACE
The U. S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) is now billing many of its athletes, charging some skiers for the right to race.
Racers are being charged between $8,000 and $20,000 for their season expenses.
The team is quick to deny that there is a budget shortfall, saying that the money for racer's expenses is going to be allocated to different things. This is not the first time that USSA has used its athletes as cash cows to raise money for the organization. The last time it was done, some 12 years ago, team results plummeted, and it took years before the U. S. skiers were once again contenders.
Making the athletes pay for their racing expenses would perhaps be more understandable if the head of USSA, Bill Marolt, was not collecting a salary of some $800,000 a year, and other high level staff were not being paid double, or even triple, what their equivalents in other sports are making.
FORGET THE POWDER, LEAVE EARLY
Park City's crowded slopes over the week of Christmas-New Year's holiday were nowhere near as bad as getting out of town.
The badly-built parking area of Park City Mountain Resort was the worst. The resort won't spend money to hire parking attendants, so at around 3:30 p.m. during peak seasons, cars start spilling from the two big lots onto the one tiny little street that leads to a main road.
This leads to cars pulling out in front of lines of other cars, until no vehicle can move. The gridlock was particularly bad on December 31. It took about 45 minutes for a vehicle to traverse the road from one end of the parking lot to the other---a distance of about 1,000 feet. People started getting mean.
Finally, someone called 911 to ask for help. Meanwhile, the grumbles are rising about PCMR not wishing to pay for an urgently required attendant to direct traffic from about 3:00 to 4:30. But the complaints are doing no good. So, the solution: Leave the resort by 2:30, or plan on staying until after 5:00.
OLYMPIC SCHEDULE ANNOUNCED
Most Olympics schedule the men's downhill for the opening day of the Games. That way, if the weather is bad, they can postpone the event until a nice day comes along.
But the only event on opening day is ski jumping. The men's downhill will be the second day, along with the men's ski jump finals, men's 10 km biathlon, women's moguls, women's hockey, men's 1,500-meter short-track speedskating and the men's long track 5,000-meter race.
Feb. 26, the 15th day of the Olympics, will be the most crowded, with women's snowboarding, women's slalom, men's and women's biathlon relays, women's curling, and three short-track speedskating races, where U. S. skater Apolo Ohno will be looking for a sixth Olympic medal.
The closing day of the Games will have the gold medal round of men's hockey. There will be 86 different events in the 2010 Olympics, which open February 12, and close Feb. 28.
Meanwhile, Vancouver is looking for Games volunteers. Volunteer applications will start being taken on Jan. 8. To find out how to apply, got to http://www.vancouver2010, and search "volunteers."