McKee’s McThoughts: Let them eat chalk

I love the European press … it treats ski racing like the big leagues. If there’s no controversy, it creates some. Step out of line and it trashes you. Even roughly translated, the sensationalized points come across. A classic source for ski racing rumor and innuendo is the Swiss publication Blick, and here’s how those guys work a headline.
I LOVE THE European press … it treats ski racing like the big leagues. If there’s no controversy, it creates some. Step out of line and it trashes you. Even roughly translated, the sensationalized points come across.
    A classic source for ski racing rumor and innuendo is the Swiss publication Blick, and here’s how those guys work a headline.
    Austrian coach Andi Evers said something to the effect that the men’s team had been resting on the laurels of Hermann Maier and Benjamin Raich for too long. Blick headed the sports section with it and the outcry in the Austrian hotel was such that the team director called Evers in and he was made to “eat chalk” before the team and a variety of television cameras.
    Fun, huh? But that’s just the start. Blick then went and found retired racers Hans Knauss and Christian Mayer to voice their agreement with Evers.
    Mayer was particularly poignant, saying many younger skiers adopted Maier’s training procedure of spending innumerable hours on the bicycle. The result, Mayer said, was that Austria now has many passable bicycle riders, but no good ski racers. Mayer isn’t likely to win Miss Congeniality with that line, but it sure drew a smile here.
    We suspect all this posturing will evaporate once the speed races get under way. Giant slalom, Austrian chief Anton Giger said before Sölden, is the “Achilles heel” of the Austrian men’s team. And it is, technically. Raich is up there on the GS start list, but the next Austrian down is in 19th. Canada and France have two guys listed higher than that in GS. The Swiss have four. No wonder the Austrian press is whining.
    If the GS rankings were an airport, Airline Austria would have most of its planes stacked up in a holding pattern waiting to land. On the World Cup start list, Austrians hold the 19th through 24th places. Trust us, somebody here is going to land. Even if they don’t, it is worth noting Austria still leads the men’s Nations Cup after the Sölden GS despite the condition of its heel. USA is second, Italy third and Norway fourth.
    BIG CROWDS: Sölden did attract some spectators. FIS estimated 26,000. Not huge, perhaps, but significant. For huge, turn to the cross-country openers that drew — by the same estimating body — 350,000 spectators. There’s not a stadium in the world that could hold that many people. The cross-country races were held in Düsseldorf, Germany, which is the capitol city in the Rhine-Ruhr region, an area that supports more than 10 million people. Sölden has a population of less than 4,000, so the discrepancy is perhaps not as wide as it appears on first blush.
    APPLAUD AUDI: Reaching people is at least part of what it’s all about. Corporations will support what attracts attention. If ski racing isn’t attracting a following, then explain why Audi keeps increasing its involvement. The company has been the overall World Cup sponsor and also the national team sponsor for Germany, Sweden, Finland, France, Liechtenstein, Italy and Switzerland. This season, the car company has added Austria and the USA. Somebody in that company is betting heavily on ski racing. A tip of the McThoughts hat for that brave soul.
    NAME GAME: And congratulations for Tanja Poutiainen, who not only won the first run of the Sölden GS, but also she made it onto the McThoughts All-Name Team.