December 17, 2015 – Letter to Pierre Mignery, FIS Technical Director regarding Start Quotas for FIS World Cups. Hi Pierre, I have seen some rhetoric, perhaps even quotes from you, concerning the small size of the women’s starting fields, for the early WC races this winter. As low as 48 starters – not good!

I would like to propose some quick changes in the criteria that would effect these quotas for this coming weekend in Toblach, Italy. It would give you feedback with which to reflect upon during the 11-day break until the Tour de Ski begins. I’m sure there will be a scramble to get this accomplished, but with the attrition that takes place during the TdS, you might not have 30 skiers at the end of this event.

You might want to look at the past couple of years of the TdS and see what the drop out numbers look like – high teens – low 20s — can you afford this?

Given these considerations, many of the teams, because of the present quota system, have extra skiers sitting around not racing, but have to be supported financially. Therefore, I’m sure you will find many teams in favor of this idea.

Here is my proposal:

– Norway, Sweden and Finland – each country gets 1 (one extra skier)
– USA, Russia, Germany, Italy, and France – each country gets 2 (two extra skiers)
– All other countries get one extra skier.
– No changes concerning the Continental selected skiers.

This will change the size of the fields by 10 to 15 skiers and in less then 5 (5) years will improve the quality level of the fields to a greater depth.

I know this isn’t the FIS way, but it is really easy to include in the current formats before embarrassingly small fields, with normal attrition, are finishing races towards the end of the season.

Bon chance!!!