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â Plus: Athletics: What if the NCAA Indoor was scored by states and countries? = Fencing: Allegations of abuse at Penn State = Swimming: Russian anti-doping agency suspends Rutgers swimmer; NCAA womenâs champs this week = Triathlon: World Tri board member suspended for safeguarding violations â
⥠SPOTLIGHT âĄ
Mention American skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin, and many people will only remember her horrific Beijing Winter Games experience, where she failed to win a medal and didnât finish in three of her six events.
But she may yet be the best womenâs skier of the 2021-22 season.
She entered the four-event World Cup Final in Meribel (FRA) leading the seasonal standings â barely â by 1,245 to 1,189 over Slovakian rival Petra Vlhova, the reigning World Cup winner.
Both are best in the Slalom and Giant Slalom, but Shiffrin has shown considerable range in the speed events as well. On Wednesday, she did it again.
Starting 21st out of 27, Shiffrin had not won a Downhill medal this season, but had two wins in the event, from 2017 and 2020. She started well, but gained a lot of speed on the bottom part of the course and came in at 1:27:00, a stunning victory over surprise co-leaders Christine Scheyer (AUT) and Swiss Joana Haehlen, who tied at 1:27.10.
For Scheyer, it was her first World Cup medal since 2017 (!) and only her second ever. Haehlen won only her third career World Cup medal and first in two years.
Vlhova finished 16th, meaning she scored no points in the event, while Shiffrin took 100 for the win and now has a 1,345-1,189 lead over Vlhova with the Super-G, Slalom and Giant Slalom remaining. Shiffrin is better at the Super-G than Vlhova, with three medals this season (0-1-2) to none and both are terrific in the technical events.
Imagine a rebound from Olympic disaster to World Cup champion; if Shiffrin is able to do it, it would be her fourth World Cup overall title and the first since her father died unexpectedly in February 2020. Said the winner:
âI feel like Iâm supposed to not be winning downhills, so it worked out amazing today.â
The race completed the World Cup Downhill season, with Italyâs Sofia Goggia winning the seasonal title with 504 points to 407 for Swiss Corinne Suter. Czech Ester Ledecka was third (339).
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In the menâs Downhill in Courchevel, Austriaâs Vincent Kriechmayr won his second World Cup race of the year, ahead of Swiss star Marco Odermatt, 1:50.43-1:50.77, with fellow Swiss Beat Feuz third (1:50.97). American Ryan Cochran-Siegle was eighth (1:52.06).
The win sewed up the seasonal World Cup title for Odermatt, his first, to go along with his Olympic Giant Slalom gold. Heâs already the seasonal Giant Slalom champion as well.
Norwayâs Aleksander Aamodt Kilde was fourth and won the seasonal Downhill title with 620 points, to 607 for Feuz. The racing continues through Sunday.
⥠THE 5-RING CIRCUS âĄ
â Alpine Skiing â Further to Shiffrin and the whole U.S. Ski Team, a fascinating discussion is taking place within the U.S. skiing community in the aftermath of the one-medal performance in Beijing, the worst U.S. showing since 1988.
It started with a post from SkiRacing.com Editor-in-Chief Geoff Mintz titled âYes, we need to talk about medalsâ on 24 February. Highlights:
â âAnyone who says the Olympics are not important to Alpine ski racing has never sat through a U.S. Ski & Snowboard Partner Summit in Park City, where in the air-conditioned dog days of summer the Olympic drumbeat resonates throughout the $22 million Center of Excellence, years in advance.â
â âShould we determine the strength of a national program based solely on Olympic results? Definitely not, but they do help sound the alarm when things arenât quite right.
âThe time and money â blood, sweat and tears â that go into running the national organization as well as countless club and academy programs across the country on a year-round basis is staggering. U.S. Ski & Snowboardâs budget for programs and admin in 2020 was nearly $45 million. Itâs even more staggering when you begin to consider the time and money â blood, sweat and tears â needed to support independent development programs, academies, camps, equipment, travel, and so on and so forth.â
â â[W]e, as a nation, came up short in these Games. This isnât âathlete bashing.â The athletes are least to blame. And it wasnât the mediaâs fault either, as some would suggest. The pressure came from within and would cripple any one of us. The team needs to be deeper. The team needs to be stronger. We need less pressure (and less hype) on a select few.â
A few days later, U.S. star Breezy Johnson, who was a medal contender in the speed events but could not compete in Beijing due to injury, replied, including:
â â[L]ook at where we are at now. This season alone we spread podiums again across 4 athletes, but [Ryan Cochran-Siegle] was fourth once and got a medal at the Games too so I say 5 podiums. We had an athlete place top ten in every discipline. You look back over the last 2 years? We have had 7 different athletes on the podium at least once. We didnât even have that many different people podium in 2009 and 2010, we only had 6, including Andrew [Weibrecht]âs Olympic podium. You want to talk about depth? We finally have depth!â
â âThe reality is this team was a knifeâs edge away from 8 realistic medals, Mikaela could have gotten four, I could have gotten one, River [Radamus] could have gotten one, the Team [Event] could have gotten one, [Cochran-Siegle] did get one. Thatâs the same haul as Vancouver, our best games. But welcome to ski racing. We all took Mikaela for granted all this time and the reality is that almost every American great in the last 25 years had a down Olympics, Lindsey [Vonn], 2006, Ted [Ligety], 2010, and Bode [Miller] 2006. It happens. All of those athletes became fiercer and better, if not because of it, then after it.â
â âSo give it a rest. You want to complain? Write a damn check because what we are doing is working even if you canât see it yet. And the great people on the U.S. Ski Team have a lot of brilliant uses for your money.â
But changes have come, as the U.S. Alpine Director Jesse Hunt, in place since 2018, is stepping down and will be replaced.
And in a 7 March post from Aldo Radamus, whose son River is one of the bright young stars of the U.S. team:
âA deeper look reveals that this Olympics wasnât the disaster that some make it out to be and that there were unexpected positives and continuing signs of progress.
âBut make no mistake: A team with numerous superstars is needed to win the Olympic medal tally. While some are on track rising through the pipeline, the U.S. has only one. …
âUsually, when elite performance is at a high level, there is less attention given to what is provided for the rising juniors. When there is a need for rebuilding, the best developing athletes are brought together in centralized camps and named teams. Without fail, efforts that start as part-time programs evolve to become full-time teams as the athletes and coaches involved realize the need for consistency and focus. …
âLetâs all take a deep breath. In sport, as in life, the best planning doesnât always result in the expected outcome. Letâs not waste time laying blame but work together to help our athletes and teams achieve what should be all our goal: For the United States Alpine Ski Team to be the best team in the world of Alpine ski racing.â
The discussion continues. Itâs a good one to have, but nothing will be settled for four years.
â Athletics â Andrew Sweeney, the assistant coach for distances at Lamar University, broke down the scoring at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships by home state or country rather than by school:
The menâs leaders included Texas (70.5), Florida (36.5), Jamaica (32.5), Arizona (30.25), Pennsylvania (27.00), California (25.25) and Nigeria (22.5).
The womenâs leaders were Texas (57.5), Ohio (47.5), California (40.0), New York (34.75),
Pennsylvania (32.0), Michigan (29.25) and Illinois (26.75).
Pretty interesting. Canât wait for outdoors!
â Fencing â Another step on the long path of changes in the way coaching is done may be underway at Penn State, according to the influential FencingParents.com site.
A late January post was headlined âIs There a Monster at Penn State University Fencing?â and went on to detail the difficult experience of former Nittany Lion fencer Zara Moss. Excerpts:
â âZara Moss and her mother Julie, shared with me the overwhelming trauma that Zaraâs fencing coach at PSU had inflicted on her during her four years on the NCAA fencing team there. Zaraâs fear of retaliation, and especially her fear of losing her full ride scholarship, stopped Zara from speaking out against this abusive coach sooner. She finally did so in March 2020, her final semester at PSU, but as you know from Zaraâs [posted] video, she received no response whatsoever from the PSU compliance department.â
â âThroughout her four years at PSU, Zara was subjected to a systematic pattern of deliberately misogynistic and offensive language that was highly abusive and deeply traumatizing …
âHere are just a few examples:
- He denied her access to her trusted high school coaches and told her she needed to spend less time with her family.
- He threatened her scholarship on a regular basis.
- He told her what she needed was a boyfriend.
âHe told her lies about what other people were saying about her and berated her in front of her teammates. One day, he called her into his office and told her she should be embarrassed because she was a disappointment to him . . . to the fencing team . . . to the entire university . . . to her friends and . . . to her family.â
The site called for Penn State coach Wes Glon, with the program as an assistant since 1985 and head coach beginning in 2013, âmust be thoroughly investigated by PSU, SafeSport and FenceSafe, and removed from his position of power and authority over fencers of any age, if he is found guilty as charged. Pending the outcome of these investigations, Wes Glon needs to be suspended as a coach and from membership of US Fencing.â
This would not be new for Glon, who was cleared in a U.S. Center for SafeSport arbitration hearing in November 2021 after being suspended for three years by SafeSport for âfailure to report sexual misconduct allegations against assistant coach George Abashidze, abuse of process and retaliation.â
The FencingParents.com report noted âPSU is now paying attention to Zaraâs complaints,â but called for continuing pressure on school officials.
â Swimming â Russia may be at war in Ukraine, but the Russian Anti-Doping Agency has not taken any time off.
SwimSwam.com reported that Russian swimmer Elizaveta Ryndych has been suspended for two years by RUSADA, in violation of a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE), with the suspension period beginning on 11 June 2021.
No further details were provided; Ryndych could have been taking a medication with prohibited ingredients and failed to get a TUE.
The site noted she is one of three Russian swimmers on the Rutgers team, where she recently completed her freshman season. The suspension would impact the swimmerâs international eligibility, but not for domestic competitions or for NCAA events (the NCAA is not a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code).
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The NCAA Womenâs Swimming & Diving Championships begin today in Atlanta, with a lot of attention to be focused on Penn transgender senior Lia Thomas.
Formerly a Penn male swimmer for three years, she transitioned to female, including taking hormone therapy to reduce her testosterone level to under 10 nmol/l, the NCAAâs standard. She has qualified for the 500-yard Freestyle (ranked no. 1 in the nation at 4:34.06), 200-yard Free (1:41.93: no. 1) and 100-yard Free (47.63: no. 10).
Look for plenty of coverage and commentary, starting here.
â Triathlon â World Triathlon posted a statement of major penalties against four senior figures in the Korean Triathlon Federation:
âWorld Triathlon Executive Board member and Asia Triathlon President, Justin Sukwon Park, has been suspended for two years by the World Triathlon Tribunal for alleged violations of the World Triathlon Safeguarding Policy and the World Triathlon Code of Ethics. Mr Jae-Keun Lee, Korea Triathlon Federation Secretary General, Mr Woo-Kyong Ki, Business Operations Manager of the KTF, and Mr Yonghu Jeon, Deputy Secretary General of the KTF, have also been suspended for 18 months for violations of the World Triathlon Code of Ethics.
âThe Tribunal ruled that Mr Park committed violations of both Codes over the handling of allegations made by South Korean triathlete Choi Suk-Hyeon, who committed suicide on 26 June 2020, after years of alleged physical and verbal abuse by her coach and teammates.â
Itâs not good to have a member of an International Federation Executive Board suspended, but Park has been suspended from his role as of 8 February 2022. In specific:
âAccording to the Tribunal, considering the seriousness of the alleged harassment and abuse of Ms Choi, the KTFâs failure to inform World Triathlon of the matter until after Ms Choiâs death, and its failure to inform Lead Welfare Officers of World Triathlon of the allegations at all, and given Mr Parkâs close relationship and contacts with World Triathlon, and his failure to ensure that the KTF complied with its reporting obligation, either through its officers or personally.â
There is no allegation that Park had anything to do with the actual abuse of Choi, but that he had a duty to report it and kept quiet. Maybe this will educate others on their responsibilities.
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