Senior Skiers

[Jess Snyder]

Frequently I find myself as one of a very few post collegiate skiers in regional races. What is the reason that no one in this age group continues to compete? I understand that strengthening junior programs is integral to our future and that skiing can be an attractive sport to many masters, but there definitely exists a rift somewhere between these two age groups.

After college, senior skiers seem to fall through the cracks. The best may have the chance to be picked up by a regional team somewhere, but what happens to everyone else?

I was lucky enough to be introduced to this sport in college, and just as I'm starting to figure out how to go fast there doesn't seem to be anyone else my age to race against at a regional level. To be fair, this isn't just a problem in skiing, as my running club experiences a high turnover in young cross country runners, especially females. I'm guessing family and work gets in the way at some point, and maybe I'm lucky to have turned my back on the world to mess around in graduate school for a while.

It's not all that gloomy though. I'm extremely excited that NENSA in particular has recognized this problem. NENSA held a U23/Senior REG camp at the OTC in Lake Placid late this past summer. This was a fantastic opportunity to meet and train with others my age. I hope other programs can identify this problem and create opportunities for post collegiate skiers in their regions. Since endurance athletes peak later in life, I think it's possible for unrecognized talent to exist in this often overlooked age group.

[Pete Vordenberg]

Thanks for this input Jess. I am glad to hear it. NENSA does great work and takes the lead in a number of ways. Lets see what ideas pop up...

[Jason Hettenbaugh]

I have to agree with Jess. Being a post graduate skier I have run in to many of the same problems that Jess mentioned in her post. I also agree strongly that there are a lot of skiers whose true potential is not being achieved due to “Falling through the Cracks” With most college ski careers ending in an athletes early 20’s they are left to fend for themselves during their most promising years. I do realize that there are regional teams that offering support such as XC Oregon, CXC, Fisher Craft, SVSEF, and so on but for the most part the spots on these teams are limited to those who are on top of their game during their collegiate years and rightfully so!! But what about everyone else? I think that is the question that needs to be addressed, it seems as though the ages in most regional results list are missing the 25-35 year old crowd. This may be just a regional problem as I’m currently in NY with Jess but it may be an overall problem. A large percentage of the nation’s best skiers come from the North East and yet we seem to have the lowest percentage of post graduate opportunities. With all of the strong Junior Programs it would be good to see some of them adopt a senior program as well. From my knowledge MWSC is the only one in the NE. I think things are headed in the right direction but we need to keep moving forward!!! I think that the Regional camp at the OTC was a great idea and the roller ski race up Whiteface was an amazing opportunity to ski against the best skiers in the US. Maybe we could have more camps like this to organize the talent in certain areas of the country, bringing everyone together more often. ALL IN !!!!!!!!

[Eric Nevalainen]

There is a nice series of articles currently running in The Master Skier called "Life Stages of Masters Athletes" that lays out some of the issues impacting skiers post graduation.

My question is--given those issues (family, work, money, etc), what is the demand for performance programs in that age bracket (say 25-30)? If you build it....will they come?

[Marshall Greene]

I certianly agree that more needs to be done for the Sr. age group, both at the almost elite level and also just at the competitive racer level. Part of the problem that I see (basically the same is in the Master Skier article) is that non-elite racers of that age are not able to dedicate themselves enough to the sport to make it worth their while. People of this age (my age) are trying to pay the bills, get into grad school, trying to find good jobs, and maybe even trying to start families. Only those who consciously decide to race full time are able to compete at a high enough level to warrant financial support for travel to races, etc.

If the support you are looking for is coaching, then yes I agree that it would be great if good personal coaching were readily and freely availible. Unfortunately the masters only 10 years older than us pay good money for that and so it's hard to get for free. That said, on XC Oregon we have two levels of our team. The so-called "funded" group that receives financial travel support for races and equipment, and the "associate group" which receives free coaching and a race suit. Given the price of coaches usually still not too bad.

Obviously I'm not saying you should move to Oregon just that I think it is a good model for a program. Providing free coaching and a few more race suits when managing a team adds very little to the cost of the program (compared to the total budget neccessary to run a development team) and helps to grow the community of competitive racers, adds more training partners for everyone, and allows the team to still win some local races (sponsor visibility) when the fast guys are gone racing Super Tours all winter. Would like to write more but time to go ski.

[Will Sweetser]

NENSA and MWSC are currently working on a more regional solution to this problem. However, one piece of the puzzle seems to be the relative lack of training groups in areas that attract this age group: cities. Most post-collegiate athletes, even part-timers, seem very reluctant to move to some of the areas in New England that can and do support seniors. In most cases this is very understandable. Aroostook County, Craftsbury, etc. are not exactly hot spots for 20-somethings.

I think that the first step to making a part-time, development athletic career work is identifying your needs and then listing the resources available to you. Often, there are more resources than you think. For instance, in New England, both MWSC and NENSA offer camps, limited free coaching, travel assistance, race support (in many cases free), and a huge training info library. If athletes want to get better, the biggest challenge I see in New England is true commitment.

With that said, the number of senior athletes competing in regional races outside of college is absolutely dismal. Of course the incentive for them to compete is basically zero. Why spend limited resources traveling to a race where you get very little reward and are likely not to face others in your age group? I think that the mind set here is the biggest issue. Often seniors expect to beat juniors and masters at this level, without actually putting in the same amount of time--either in yearly training or in years of training--that the competition has. If seniors start looking at competitive markers of improvement (FIS points, NENSA points, time per km), instead of simply what place they finish, they may find a better path to success. After all, at the national level, we do have a competitive group of seniors putting in the time every day.

Keep up the good fight Jess, we need skiers at every level working together to improve.

[Amy Todd]

I think 20 somethings get out of skiing because of post college career, post college life/love/relationships, post college location, etc. Once you graduate from college the world is wide open to you which is awesome. Sometimes there can be attitude of been there done that. I certainly found that to be true after college with competitive sailing. I grew up in Michigan and currently live in Michigan today. I sailed (for fun and competitively) so much from my childhood through college and for a few years after college. When I met my spouse (who both sailed and skied:) we sailed competitively together, got married then we just got totally burned out and wanted to do other things. We completely stepped out of sailing for 5 straight years. Then we had kids and we returned to sailing big time because we wanted them to experience the joy, beauty and thrill of it.

That can be almost translated into our skiing life too. We didn't ski competitively growing up but we both did plenty of skiing (nordic and alpine) from our early childhood into our 20s. Now we are making up for it. We have been skiing for 5-6 years competitively in the Michigan Cup since having our kids who are now 7 and 9 (check out www.nordicskiracer.com for the whole schedule). And we are enjoying every minute of it. It is an awesome lifestyle for us and for our kids.

Hopefully those who grew up skiing will continue to have a passion for it, pass it on to their family and pass it on to their kids. That is the future of skiing. (It will also help if skiers marry skiers and have little skier offspring!) Eventually they my get back into it. Keep in touch with your previous competitors and rally a camaraderie, encourage those to get back into skiing for the fun, beauty and joy of it. Some may choose to get back into racing some may not. It takes a whole new level when doing it around the family... that can be for another post.

Good luck with your racing and always do your best!

[Ken Salzberg]

One other factor that has not been mentioned, that I noticed the year I did spend in Oregon, is the actual level of competition in the Sr. level. Unlike in high school competition (where there is a large number of schools, and athletes, at all levels competing), or in the Masters groups (likewise a large number of athletes with a very wide range of skills), if one races in the Sr. group, one has to race against the very best in the nation - all the Olympic and Olympic wanna-bes are there. A "good" skier might do well (even place, occasionally) at a master's level - and be sure to be in the top part of the age-group standings. However, you have to be very, very good to place, or even be close, in those Sr. groups.
This has to be discouraging for those who just want to race, rather than compete nationally or even internationally.

[Janice Sibilia]

Jess, you are stating something that I hear frequently not only within NY and NE but across the country. Its a tough spot for this age group for several reasons, many of which have been said in other's responses.
As Will Sweetser mentions, we are working on some residency type programs in NE- but those that enable an athlete to have a choice in where they live, work and/or attend school. It takes time, legwork ( both of which we can deal with) but also money- that is the tougher nut to crack. But its not impossible.
The plan is also to have more camps like the Sr/U23 camp. Hang in there and keep searching out opportunities and we'll keep at it from our end.

[Alex Jospe]

One option for seniors just out of college with no plans (or results) to ski with one of the major "senior" teams out there is to join a regional or local junior club. For me, the Cambridge Sports Union in Boston was a perfect fit. Although most clubs are aimed at juniors or masters, I doubt that there would be any resistance to having seniors joining in. It is a win-win situation--often, seniors have the latest information on technique, training, and nutrition that they picked up in college, and the junior skiers can see what it takes to ski successfully at that level, as well as see with their own eyes that they can keep skiing after college. In return, the senior skiers get to ski with a group, and remain connected to the skiing community. The seniors also get to observe how master skiers balance the job-skiing-family triangle, which is half the battle of senior skiing.

In terms of racing, I think it would be great if regional programs (I am only familiar with NENSA and NYSSRA) had a series that was aimed at senior skiers, with prizes or other incentives. NENSA puts on the Eastern Cups, which are also JOQs, but I know a lot of seniors who don't want to race the cream of the junior crop. Masters get their own races, why can't seniors have a series also? If not their own series, maybe the citizen series that is aimed at masters could have a senior division, with points and stuff to give incentive to race. I think that there are a lot of senior skiers out there who no longer have the time or energy to put in the training necessary to be at the top of the pile, but would like to keep racing if they had some place to do it. Would this be hard to implement?

[Janice Sibilia]

Hey Alex,

Great points. Regarding a series for Seniors, I am working on that as a part of our NE Eastern Cup races. The goal is to have meaningful prizes to the top 3 men and women based on a scored list ( similar scoring to the Eastern Cups). Sponsorship did not materialize to do this in a big way for this season, but we will, at the very least, recognize the athletes at the final EC race at Holderness, and have some type of awards. Keep checking on this for next season!

[Pete Vordenberg]

The Super Tour races are open to all - from juniors to all seniors to masters to college to whoever wants to race. These are great races to test yourself against the best in the US sometimes the best in all of North America and sometimes against some of the best in the world. www.ussa.org or www.fis-ski.com have race schedules.

[Janice Sibilia]

Pete, good point about the super tour races...but not everyone can afford to travel to the west or mid west to compete in these....and right now that is where they are located.