Originally intended as a reply to that Boronowski interview, just posting it everywhere Olympic-related to see what you guys think.
Thanks first of all to Anthony for bringing this to the table, because to me that was what he was trying to accomplish. He wanted people to vent some opinion since there wasn't a lot other than "oh great !".
I think alot of smart and stupid things have been said and now pipe's in and no one'll read this but I need to say something anyway, so you could hear the "scando" view.
It's really cool that all the athletes that work hard on their skiing, wether it's all for fun or for making a living as well(cus no one does this just as a job, everyone competing must have alot of passion to do what they do), get a chance to compete in the worlds largest venue. My favorite skiers are guys like Hornbeck, Holson, Dale, Liam and so on. I still love to watch a good, versitile piperun- hell I love watching everyone from Dumont to Dorey to Duncan. How could you not be stoked that they'll have the chance to participate in the olympics.
The downside though:
I live in Sweden and actually get supported by companies like Atomic and Giro for doing what I love most in skiing; handrails and park(some
backcountry too recently which is baller but urban still holds it down). I'm also the producer for my brothers skifilm company TFJprod. This just so you know where I'm coming from.
Snowboarding has eaten skiings' dust over here ever since Jon Olsson came along so we're actually already kinda the mainstream majority. We're producing some of the worlds steeziest and best skiers over here with Jon, Henrik, Henrik, Jacob, Niklas and a whole lot more in both park and
backcountry skiing. A swede has been on the podium in virtually every FreerideWorldTour event and I think every Mammoth Jib Academy final has been won by a swede(Henrik, Kim, Simon, Axel) and so yeah, we're one of the big nations in this.
Therefore I fear that the future is dim for people like me. The ones who want their non-competitive freeskiing funded and for our little skifilm company that needs more money as it is so that we can eat something other than ramen. Now that the olympics has come along the ski companies will spend more money supporting comp skiers and not us because wether or not skiing gets more money, we'll be getting less. I think that's safe to say when it comes to comps and webisode series as well. Line will keep doing their thing with TC and Orage probably will keep doing the Masters but it's not going to get easier. Companies like Rossi, Salomon, Dynastar and Völkl who have been in the game for a long time will likely not be putting their money into things like this because they have traditions in other big olympic sports.
I'm not trying to be a downer but I fear this olympic thing alot so if anyone sees this, tell me what you think.
