June 01, 2012 – Enough Kikkan? – It’s been the year of “The Kikkan” and if you have not had enough of her yet go find the Spring issue of SKITRAX Magazine. Start with the cover and continue right on through and if you are counting it’ll be at least 16 times that she graces those pages – big ones, medium ones, small ones, on the podium, racing, relay team shots, sprints – you name it, she is there. A real recognition of all that she has done this winter and over the last 10 years – just the way they say it should happen. Congratulations to you Kikkan and the best for the years to come.

ps. The Craftsbury Green Team disagrees with me. Here is what they had to say on the NENSA twitter site: CraftsburyGreen Evening entertainment at the GRP house: guessing how many times Kikkan’s pic appears in the newest issue of SkiTrax – see FB. Count again guys and make sure you count the skiing shot, you’re off by 2.

pps. Another thought on Kikkan – with her FIS Athlete rep position my guess is that you will see her becoming another Beckie Scott political figure in the future with FIS and the IOC when her skiing career comes to and end in another 2-6 years. Check it out and let me know.

Quebec Olympic Bid – I can’t believe that Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC, is reading my stuff, but he is supportive of a bid from Quebec to host the Olympics in the near future. (Read more here) Here is what I wrote last October in SkiTrax‘s The Way I See It!) about Quebec’s sport leaders turning down their own possibility to bid.

Quebec’s Olympic Bid – Turned down again – not by the IOC, but by themselves – even before they moved into the bid process. You can’t win if you don’t bid and to say they’re lacking in some critical areas is not a legitimate excuse as there will be at least 10-12 years minimum until their Games occur, so plenty of time to correct these kinds of issues. If they feel they need to strengthen their bid why not just step down a level and host a World Championships-type event to prove the legitimacy of their organization in the international arena.

How about hosting the FIS World Nordic Championships? The Quebec City environment and spirit would lend its self well to hosting such a games and would be able to work off of the fact that these championships have been hosted only two other times in North America and it will have been 20-25 years since the last time. A real feather in their cap to making the next step – a real serious bid for the Olympics. Bon Chance Quebec City!!!

The Four Year Doping Ban – WADA has now had the 4-year ban available for sports associations and federations to use for doping violation for at least two if not three years and to my surprise, only one sport has taken advantage of this sanction to my knowledge – weight lifting.

Just in the past few months the COA (Court of Arbitration) has dealt with two or three cases concerning sanctions handed down by the IOC and the BOC (British Olympic Committee) to athletes where they have banned athletes from competing in this next Olympics this summer after having served their 2-year sanction brought by there own sport associations. The COA said you can’t penalize an athlete twice for the same crime, especially after they had served their first sanction’s penalty.

I sometimes wonder about the people running these organizations. This is not hard to accomplish – just invoke the 4-year ban that’s being offered – that takes care of what all of the people involved – the sport associations, the IOC and the BOC were trying to accomplish. With this step you would really be delivering the knock-out blow to the proliferation of doping that still exists in sport. Very few, if any athletes would sit out a ban of this length, especially with missing the Olympics being the crushing blow.

Photo Opps – Interesting to me to see how all of a sudden the higher ups in the USST are available at Nordic competitions or otherwise for the news outlets, when they haven’t been seen or heard of over on these side of the tracks in years – and I mean years.

Prize Money – over the years whenever I was attending BOD meetings there was always the worry by board members that with the time and the dedication of  skiers, being that a team career was just like a job, that we might be producing ski bums. They had to wait to do college. Well the college wait is still on the books, but now the kids at the top are going to be rich ski bums. Here are their prize money earnings from FIS WCup races this past winter. Remember these are Swiss Francs I’m talking but the numbers will be about the same if they were in US dollars as the currencies are virtually on par.

DEVON KERSHAW – CH122,575
KIKKAN RANDALL – CH77,588
ALEX HARVEY – CH30,856
CHANDRA CRAWFORD – CH19500
LEN VALJAS – CH16250
JESSIE DIGGINS – CH8,500

Also, if you are on the A Team in Canada you have carding money from the government totalling about $20,000/year and for all teams skiers also have suppliers and sponsors to finding additional dollars.

My guess is that Devon, Alex, Kikkan and Chandra (only Olympic gold medalist in the group) are all making $100,000 to $200,000 a year, this year. FANTASTIC!! I think and feel. Kochie was one of these guys in ’76

Talk To You Soon!
misterxc@aol.com