Dr. Kumar Mehta, author of “The Exceptionals,” writes of the factors that consistently define those that achieve the permyriad of achievement — the best of the best. Natural aptitude or talent for the activity; high volume of deliberate practice requiring early specialization; specific “enablers” such as environment, parents, coaches and peers. 

Regarding these enablers he writes: “If you want to become an exceptional skier you need to have easy access to snow.”

The significance and extent of the cost issue in ski racing can be summarized as this: The majority of those skiers with easy access to snow do not have the resources to pursue the sport and the majority of those able to easily afford the sport don’t have easy access to snow. 

Especially in a sport where the environment in which it is practiced is a rare resource, access to that environment is a critical success factor. A limited geography where skiing is possible, a short and shrinking season when we can practice and limits in most cases to daylight operating hours add to the scarcity. 

Unlike many sports that can be practiced nearly any day or time in the backyard, driveway or nearby park or gym, skiing is highly inefficient to engage in. Many hours are required on lifts and in lines just to enable the activity for several minutes per day. There is little skill transfer from other sports so accumulating time on snow, from an early age, is critical. 

For those without easy access to snow, there are significant costs just to get to skiing. Lift passes and equipment costs pale in comparison to the costs for transportation, lodging or second homes and restaurant meals for the entire family. These cost issues are not easily solved. 

The principal issue to solve is the accessibility of our sport and programs for those kids whose families already have easy access to snow. Whether living in mountain towns in the East or West or near to ski hills near urban areas; the accessibility of programs providing training and coaching becomes the pinch point. 

The second and equally important issue is the affordability of advancement in the sport. Critical are the design of the competition pipeline, advancement standards and financial support for highly performing athletes. An efficient system rewards achievement with increased opportunity and support, not increased costs. 

As we seek to improve points and rankings, we fail to focus on the acquisition of skills that lead to improvement and are then validated by results. Points and rankings can be “gamed” by those who know the system and have the resources to pursue those opportunities, wherever they might be. While this expense may not be an obstacle for that individual, the fact that the system allows for this approach places an unacceptable burden on others to keep up or not miss out. All of this raises the bar for participation in the sport and has the effect of suppressing participation.

There is a critical developmental need for athletes to have access to an expanding competitive peer group as abilities improve. For the vast majority of athletes, appropriate peer groups and incrementally more challenging levels of competition are available without spending excessive amounts of time, traveling great distances or assuming the expense of being away from home and out of the classroom. For those who outgrow their local competition, rising to the top of either their local age group or competition series, advancing to higher levels of competition is the logical and important next step. This challenge should be reserved for the 2-3% of competitors who have clearly risen to separate from their peers.

The aggregation of competitive skiers involves either combining age groups, expanding competition territories, or both. This places an increased burden of expense on the advancing athletes. Offsetting this expense by providing meaningful funding support from national or divisional associations, home clubs, individual supporters, foundations or other sources becomes increasingly unrealistic the more athletes that are selected for advancement. Focusing resources on a narrow group of advancing athletes opens the opportunity for limited and realistic funding to make a meaningful difference in supporting achievement. When we dare to think critically about those who NEED these additional and expensive opportunities, we may be able to afford to fund them. The overarching goal is to create a competition pipeline that serves the needs of ALL participants, regardless of their level, and provides advancement determined by performance and not limited by means.

Over the years, we have allowed a system with clearly established pipelines, levels and standards for advancement to be replaced with a wild world of opportunities that has degraded local competitions and appropriate stepping stones that provide intermediate rewards and reinforce commitment. WE have made the rules and dismantled these systems and accelerated the expense of ski racing by bringing ever more discretionary travel into our sport. WE have allowed financial resources to have an outsized impact on short-term results.

This has led to a rapid increase in the professionalization of our sport programs. More travel requires more coaches and more coaches who are “professionals” making coaching their full-time profession. These salaries and associated expenses are passed on to the users in the form of increased program fees and raise expectations for successful athletic outcomes. In turn, this drives more aggressive racing and travel closing the non-virtuous cycle of increased costs. The problem is, these behaviors do create apparent benefits of lower points and rankings. We have to step back and look objectively over a longer term to see that we fail to encourage the athletic development that leads to meaningful improvement and performance that can only be achieved through focused training.

Excessive and unlimited opportunities for racing and travel both drive the expense of our sport and limit the performance potential of our athletes.

It is easy to point our finger at the expense of equipment and lift passes and the increased costs of airline tickets, accommodations and travel meals but the problem is us. Our actions have made our programs and competition pipeline more expensive and accessible to an ever narrower demographic. We have to change the way we have structured the sport in such a way that controls the need to have these expenses. In the end, we will find we have also improved our performance. Win/win.

More from Aldo later in this series.

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