All you out there who know me can probably guess I'm against creating women's courses. kristi-leskinen-slopestyle-athletes-women's courses? True. There are a few big reasons why I think it would be very dangerous to the progression of our sport and even keeping women skiing in the game.
Here's my summary:
1. There wont be the funds to create separate girl courses and we will end up cutting ourselves even more out of the industry.
2. Smaller separate courses wont push the progression it will hold it back and it wont increase respect in the industry we will lose it.
3. Injuries happen to everyone- girl or boy- and yea they suck, but if you do an extreme sport they're gonna be there and you should learn from them, but don't let them define your skiing. And it's impossible to make an extreme sport less extreme while keeping the extreme hyphe with it.
Now let me elaborate on those three points with a very long blog post ;)
The number one reason I am against the women's t (WPGA) idea
has nothing to do with ability it's what most everything in life comes down to-money.
We are fighting right now to be let into comps because we don't get as much interest. The lack of interest results in the networks airing women's skiing making less money, and it proves less cost efficient to add women to the course. NOW if we are having trouble with this what makes anyone think that any company and network are gonna wanna dish out money to build us a separate course when we aren't making them enough money to do that? Yea maybe the Olympics can build a girls course, but stuff like Dew? NO WAY and what's gonna happen is we're just gonna get cut out entirely. Seriously though, look at all the park comps and tours that have gotten cut because there's not enough money, now look at the girls. Even queens cup got cut this year.....so what are we trying to do cut ourselves out of the industry? What I foresee happening is gonna be girls fighting to get back into the guy comps where there is the interest and funding to put on the event resides. Doesn't that sound a bit like what Sarah was doing years ago??? So that's my first point. Lots of people have been touching on the talent of women skiers and the potential beneficialness of smaller jumps, and countering with how the individual will make less money. But realistically we don't pull a large enough fan base to even generate enough money to counter the costs of creating a whole different course for girls. And paying the officials and getting network air time. Don't even start with the girls getting a lower salary and prize money- which will happen, but the comps wont even happen.
So ultimately I'm scared that trying to create this push will cut girls out of the industry completely. That being said I personally don't even agree with the reasonings behind the push. I love hitting well made large jumps. The feeling of soaring through the air cannot be replicated and isn't that why you hit jumps anyways? because you LOVE too? Yea the first time in my life I hit an 85 foot jump I had butterflies. I made the mistake of standing next to it the day before and seeing how much larger than me it was, and wondered that night if i really could hit it. But the next day I jumped at the end of a train of boys and cleared the jump easy. Everyone whose had that experience knows the rush from accomplishing that. The feelings indescribable- but it's passion. I ski because of the passion I have for skiing.
To be honest if people are successful in making 45 foot jump courses for the ladies, that soaring feeling isn't gonna be there for me as much. Sure I think people should focus on style, but if the "reason" girls aren't doing stylish tricks is because the jumps are too big then why don't they focus on dropping banger edits? I've seen some SICK edits dropped by girls on smaller sized jumps, and that's dope, but i've also seen girls transition that style to larger jumps. And about the whole progression thing. Yea girls are way behind boys. It sucks. It's way easier for girls to get into and do well in big comps. But it's WAY hard to get any respect from the industry. Thats true but getting a different course isn't gonna gain us any respect. And honestly there's been a huge push recently with girls doing bigger and harder tricks. There's a bunch of young european chicks that aren't even on the pro circuit right now that are hungry and capable of big tricks on big jumps. The way you get to that level is using simple and steazy progression in your spins and flips. For instance-Work on grabs and adding 180's. Sure maybe Kaya can do a switch 10 on a 50 foot jump, but it's not gonna be smooth and floated with a tweaked grab, it's gonna be wrapped. Park isn't about wrapping big spins with no grabs. It's about floating bangers with mad style. And no body has even touched on dubs. Girls are gonna be throwing smooth dubs. Smaller jumps-not even gonna happen. Sure there will be girls who hit the big jumps just because they love too. Do the big tricks for the rush, and hopefully they will get respect and compensation through filming, but the majority of the girls are not gonna do a trick they don't have to do to win a comp. It's technically smarter to do smaller tricks and get paid then push yourself and risk getting injured. Oh yea and by the way I never got to vote in this decision. I'm sure a lot of the other girls who didn't get to vote who have opinions as well. The girls who voted might have different opinions then from a different generation of girl skiers that are coming up.
But seriously how many people get injured on stupid tricks as well as big jumps. And i say people cause yea surprise ummm tons of guys blow their knees out every year too. I'm not gonna get into whether girls do it more or not, seriously tons of people in this sport have blown their knees out, and I don't see TJ saying" oh yea I'm only gonna hit a 45 foot jump." Or when Tanner Hall broke both his ankles he just rehabbed and got back on top-in pipe! and then did it again with when he blew out both knees! No body pays as much attention to when guys wreck themselves because it doesn't define them or their skiing. They don't carry around the baggage of breaking themselves when they go back to skiing. They get strong, lift, take it mellow and get back all their tricks. I dunno dude I blew my knee out twice in 1 year. In my opinion the first one was because I was skiing stupid. And the 2 one was landing 1 foot on 1 foot off on the tramp and getting it caught. Neither of them were because of big jumps. I recognize how much it SUCKS to blow out your knee. Pretty much devastating and you feel empty. There's no passion cause skiing's gone. So i get that but I don't think injuries should define our sport, or define how you ski. Yea learn something from it, but your fighting a losing battle if you wanna take an extreme sport and make it not extreme while still holding the thrill of being extreme? Dude that doesn't even make sense as I'm writing it.
Also aren't there already a small side on most courses? I know Grand Prix does. So if you really can do a technical trick WAY better on the small side then the big side then girls already have the opportunity to do that. Maybe work with the judging to help STYLE get rewarded above hucking for both GIRLS AND BOYS. But if there already is a small side, then I don't see a reason to even bring up this argument. Getting rid of the big jumps and making it mandatory to hit smaller jumps is just making it impossible for girls to do harder tricks like dubs.
So too sum up what I think-
1. There wont be the funds to create separate girl courses and we will end up cutting ourselves even more out of the industry. And paying the competitions officials to hang around and trying to get the networks to come back for our comps will KILL the sport.
2. Smaller separate courses wont push the progression it will hold it back and it wont increase respect in the industry we will lose it.
3. Injuries happen to everyone- girl or boy- and yea they suck, but if you do an extreme sport they're gonna be there and you should learn from them, but don't let them define your skiing. And it's impossible to make an extreme sport less extreme while keeping the extreme hyphe with it.
That's it
-Jamie
