ADVENTURE SPORTS BY WINA STURGEON 3/18/08
U. S. FREESTYLE CHAMPIONSHIPS
The whole town of Park City is getting into the act. Deer Valley usually puts on the popular Freestyle Championships alone. This time, Park City Mountain Resort is hosting the halfpipe competition March 28---yes, halfpipe is part of the show now. Aerials will be at Utah Olympic Park on Thursday, March 27. Deer Valley will host the mogul competition on Saturday, March 29, and the ever popular dual moguls on Sunday.
Gosh, it's hard to know which to pick. DV has become famous for putting on the best show in town. Now it's venue competition time, and the real winners will be the spectators! For news about the events, search online for U. S. Freestyle Championships.
THE WHOLE CREW RESIGNS
It may be fun to travel if you're a racer, but maybe not so much if you're a coach or ski tech. For one thing, you never get to sleep in your own bed or see your family. That may be why a whole slew of resignations have just been tendered.
Head U. S. men's ski team coach Phil McNichol resigned at the end of last week, just as the U. S. team finished the World Cup with its best season in a quarter century. McNichol is married to former racer Beth Madsen (whose brother, Bill Madsen, is the head honcho of NASTAR). No replacement has yet been announced by USSA.
At the same time, Bode Miller's "Team America," the incredibly successful crew who coached, ski tuned, drove and cared for Miller on the rigorous World Cup circuit as it bounced around Europe, has dissolved. Miller, who clinched the overall World Cup title just last week, is now casting a shadow of a doubt on his return to racing, which he says is still "up in the air."
But his head coach, John McBride, is known to have been uncomfortable at not getting any family time, especially since his wife recently had a child. Whether Miller would want to continue without his close crew remains to be seen.
PROBLEMS AT NASTAR NATIONALS
NASTAR is such an important program to the sport of ski racing that few will publicly point out any flaws. But at the Nationals that recently concluded at Steamboat Resort, there were more than a few problems. The older people in the higher ranked gold and platinum categories got something of a shaft.
The 55 and older group that raced on a more advanced slope had wonderful snow, but a very long wait to use it. The first day of racing on Friday was delayed by nearly two hours because of a timing problem. Though the race start was scheduled for 9:30 a.m., it was after 11:00 before the race began. Then came the wait for results. Five hours after the race concluded, the results still had not been posted, though all results for the younger racers were available.
Worse, there was another delay on Saturday. Racers in the 55-74 age group had to wait more than an hour for their event to begin, shivering in their race suits with no explanation for the delay.
No apology was offered by NASTAR for the situation. Even the Saturday night party broke up early, before 9:30, because high winds made organizers worry that the gondola would have to stop and strand the partygoers at the top of the mountain for the night.