FasterSkier Forums » Collegiate

1. Topher Sabot, Editor
   Key Master

   Quotas for the NCAA championships are based on the results of the previous championships. So generally the RMISA gets the most spots- with a number of very fast European imports, and also some of the top Americans, the RMISA has significantly more depth at the top.

   This does make it very hard for athletes in other regions to qualify. Is this method fair? It does mean that the Championships will feature the top skiers, regardless of what division they ski in. Should NCAAs have a bigger total field?

   Posted 2 years ago #

2. lsiebert
   Member

   I don't think the NCAA's would suffer from having a larger field. I think it would increase the potential for surprises-for a skier to have a breakout performance or something like that. I have to say I'm biased as an EISA skier.

   Posted 2 years ago #

3. Matthew Voisin
   Member

   I think this is a situation where most Nordic skiers do not know the entire story. I am not saying that I do, but my guess is that there are factors being considered that make things a little more complicated. We all know that the economy is very difficult right now and at the end of the day the NCAA has to answer to their budget.

   Increasing the number of competitors also lengthens the amount of time needed to put on such an event. This is obviously not too big a deal in Nordic, but is a significant consideration on the Alpine side. Not only does increasing the number of skiers take more time, but also deteriorates the course on the Alpine course as well.

   This is a similar problem to the desire to add a sprint event at the NCAA Championships. The scoring has to be equal in both Nordic and Alpine. So Nordic can not have three events and Alpine only two. And again their are the budget issues that have to be considered if an added event was added.

   Posted 2 years ago #

4. biathlete
   Member

   It should be mentioned that NCAA quotas take into account the two previous years' Championships' results-making it slightly more fair if one team has an off year. I would have to say that I don't think increasing quotas is the answer. Every year there are several skiers that qualify for NCAAs and don't end up going. This is because of team size limits-meaning even someone down at 20th place in the EISA makes it above the guy in 5th because 1-3 were his teammates and each team may only take 3 skiers in each gender. In my opinion, if we're giving more people the opportunity to race, why not give it to the skiers who actually earned it and had the "misfortune" to be on an extremely stacked team.

   Posted 1 year ago #

5. Zach Hudson
   Member

   Full disclosure I'm a CCSA skier who would need about 50 more qualifying slots to make NCAA's

   My only real problem with the NCAA quota is that it doesn't account for the fact that the ccsa doesn't send alpine skiers to nationals. It makes sense to have a larger cross country field because there are more schools represented in cross country than in alpine. I also think having a minimum of 10 slots per gender per region makes a lot of sense it's hard to improve a region if it's top athletes don't get exposed to the other top competitor's in the country.

   Posted 1 year ago #

6. kboyer5
   Member

   Seems like they just need to split cross country and alpine.

   Posted 1 year ago #

7. lsiebert
   Member

   Seems to me like its a holdover from the days when a lot of skiers were competing in multiple events in the same carnival (cross-country, jumping, alpine). So yeah, kboyer's idea of splitting them sounds pretty good to me.

   Posted 1 year ago #

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