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The Future for Alpine Racing?


Hasbin

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I'm just wondering where Alpine racing is going in North America. To me it seems stagnet and going no where. Can someone inlighten me on where it might be going. I follow it as much as possible, but I find myself more interested in watching SBX. I just looked at the US Snowboard Team and see that they have only 2 members listed and no B team as do the rest. :confused:

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I'm just wondering where Alpine racing is going in North America. To me it seems stagnet and going no where. Can someone inlighten me on where it might be going. I follow it as much as possible, but I find myself more interested in watching SBX. I just looked at the US Snowboard Team and see that they have only 2 members listed and no B team as do the rest. :confused:

Check out USASA and USSA. Both alive and have many planned alpine events.

Also fis-ski.com, look at the snowboard calendar. Its all there, just need to know where to look.

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With the down fall of the US Snowboarding alpine team five of the World Cup athletes and the SSWSC have come together to create the USA Snowboard Racing Team. The five athletes are Lindsay Lloyd, Madeline Wiencke, Vic Wild, Michael Trapp, and Garrett Sorteburg with Thedo Remmelink and Nate Emerson as coaches. The team is apart of the SSWSC and based out of Steamboat, Colorado. Our website, www.usasnowboardracingteam.com is currently under construction but will be fully running soon.

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I'm not a racer, but I think there would be a lot more interest in snowboard racing if there were more events. Has there been any interest in setting up longer courses, like a regular (non parallel) GS course over the course of a trail with a few turns and/or headwalls etc??

I think that sort of thing would bring a lot of interest back to snowboard racing.

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In Quebec, we are running a NorAm double event ( PGS/PSL ) for the last 6 years at "Le Relais" in Quebec city. This year, the event will be on February 12th-13th, a week prior to the World Cup PGS event in Stoneham

We will also run a FIS-GS event at Mont Blanc, close to Tremblant at the end of January. We have run a PGS event for the last 3 years at Mont Blanc. ( Easier to run a GS event )

Finally we will run a FIS-PGS event at Tremblant by January 6th. We have run the Canadian Championship at Tremblant for the last 2 years.

Plus we have 2 other non-FIS events, one of them is a very popular Saturday night event.

All those events are "PROFITABLE". ;)

Plus, this has created a group of dedicated young racers among Quebec racers. At the end of last season, 4 of our Juniors were among the 25 first World Junior ranked.

It just take a group of dedicated volunteers to run those events...:biggthump

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I am relieved to see that there is still lots of interest. Seems most of the hard platers are coming from east, not surprised, with the lack of powder most would love to carve. I still am interested to know what is going on with the American Team. Why the split? All the attention seems to be with the SBX and HP Teams

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Racing in North America is dying. Numbers are down at regional USASA events and Series Directors find it difficult to run events when only 10-20 racers show up. A lot of effort goes into putting on event, and in many cases, it is mountains are requiring a fee for use of the trail. with such low numbers, it is not profitable to run races. I have asked in the "Get out and Race" thread for everyone to go to at least one USASA race this season...I can only hope people go. Series directors are talking in hushed voices about the possibility of dropping racing alltogether...but you didn't hear it from me...

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Racing in North America is dying. Numbers are down at regional USASA events and Series Directors find it difficult to run events when only 10-20 racers show up. A lot of effort goes into putting on event, and in many cases, it is mountains are requiring a fee for use of the trail. with such low numbers, it is not profitable to run races. I have asked in the "Get out and Race" thread for everyone to go to at least one USASA race this season...I can only hope people go. Series directors are talking in hushed voices about the possibility of dropping racing alltogether...but you didn't hear it from me...

This is what I am hereing as well, in Canada, some here seem to be either packing it in or switching to SBX

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Alpine snowboard racing is not as marketable at the BX or HP. Even alpine ski racing is seeing less interest. Keep in mind also that new skier/snowboarder numbers are down as well, and return ski/snowboarders after the first lesson is also down. With the increase in pricing and the decrease in smaller "feeder resorts" the market base of avid skiers and snowboarders will continue to decline. Alpine snowboarding does have a unique opportunity right now to capture all of the current 18-25 year old base of snowboarders who are realizing that they are too old to be doing flips in the pipe anymore, who may just loose interest. The problem with that is that there are limited places to try alpine snowboarding.

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