McKee's McThoughts: Svindal, Hosp, take a bow

By Published On: March 21st, 2007Comments Off on McKee's McThoughts: Svindal, Hosp, take a bow

Hats off to Nicole Hosp and Aksel Lund Svindal for winning the overall World Cup titles in dynamic fashion.
    Svindal’s finish was momentous. How do you win when you have to? This is a guy who doesn’t win race after race. In 158 World Cup starts prior to Lenzerheide, he had four wins. That’s a winning percentage of 2. By contrast, Benjamin Raich’s win percentage is more than 12.
HATS OFF TO Nicole Hosp and Aksel Lund Svindal for winning the overall World Cup titles in dynamic fashion.
    Svindal’s finish was momentous. How do you win when you have to? This is a guy who doesn’t win race after race. In 158 World Cup starts prior to Lenzerheide, he had four wins. That’s a winning percentage of 2. By contrast, Benjamin Raich’s win percentage is more than 12.
    The great ones find another gear when they need it. At World Championships, Svindal pulled in two gold medals, and now, at Lenzerheide, with the overall World Cup title at stake, he found three more wins.
    While we’re on the topic of Lenzerheide, does anyone else find it interesting that Bode Miller wins a World Cup title — one of just 17 earned by Americans in the last 38 years — and he’s still going to be considered a disappointment for the season. What’s the guy have to do? Mighty steep price for the amazing success he has had over the years.
    It was nice to feel the enthusiasm with which the core of the ski racing community embraced the NCCA title by Dartmouth. It was a connection solidly made and the electricity flowed through unabated. The connections were multiple. Dartmouth spearheaded racing in this country, but the energy ran deeper than that. Dartmouth was an all-American team — no foreigners — and that aspect cannot be underestimated, but that wasn’t the conduit the electricity truly flowed through either. To this view, the strongest connection was money, and there is nothing America loves more than money.
    Skiing is a sport the wealthy play. It’s an unspoken truth. Just look at Beaver Creek. Look at the Mount Washington Hotel. Look at the lift-ticket price at the local hill. Money was the conductor. The connection was pure gold.
    The tuition at Dartmouth is irrelevant. It’s more the atmosphere the college provides. Dartmouth is an old established institution. Those families who send their grown youngsters to Dartmouth feel comfort in doing so. Comfort is the payback of wealth.
    The athletes we spoke to from other universities at the NCAA championships seemed like great kids. No question they were very good athletes. But the boost Dartmouth provided, the excitement that surged through the hard-wired soul of our very sport, oh, that was special. In this age, it seems, wins for the establishment aren’t as easy to come by as they once were.
So thank you athletes of Dartmouth. Thank you for the hard work and pure joy you exhibited in New Hampshire.
    March is a crazy month. In Vermont, the view from the porch has been rapidly shifting. The sap has been running. Massive amounts of snow have melted. The creek broke through the ice. Temperatures swung upward of 65 degrees in less than 24 hours and then headed back down. Now the weather bureau says, upward of 20 inches of snow is predicted. It’s hard to keep track of.     Around the nation, skiing future is taking shape in Junior Olympic competition, sponsored, by the way, by Chevrolet and a tip of the McThought hat for that.
    The JOs aren’t all that easy to keep track of either, not with five or six hundred competitors participating at ski areas coast to coast. A handful of those skiers will make it into NCAA competition. A very small percentage will make it to the World Cup, a World Championship or the Olympics. A dozen would be a large number. Of those, two might become international stars.
    Friends, they are all stars. And, more importantly, they are fine young people with ideals and goals and a capacity to enjoy working toward those goals. Maybe that’s crazy, too. Or maybe it’s the way we all should approach life.

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About the Author: Pete Rugh