Replying to Real Talk / Have ski academies diminished chances for less fortunate athletes to compete at high levels?
This is a pretty complex issue, and something I probably shouldn't care about, but I thought it would be interesting to talk about. Do ski academies have an impact on who competes now, and will they have an impact on who competes at higher levels in a few years? The first place I'd look to see if it's true would be ski racing. Ski racing academies have been around for decades now, with the first one being established in the 1970’s. There's now countless across the continental United States, and countless Olympic athletes who have graduated from these (Mikayla Shiffrin, Luke Winters, etc). You can assume that a LARGE number of professional ski racers were put into these ski academies. Now how the fuck do I relay ski racing into park skiing, well, academies like Wyeast do exist. In episode 57 of the Two Planker Podcast, Luke Votaw, Newschoolers favorite skier, discusses competing against high level ski academy kids. At first glance he does give off that academy kid vibe, and I think it's a common misconception that he is one. “Maybe going out to windells or wyeast would be beneficial, but my high school was pretty lenient”, Luke chose to complete High School online with his local public school, this allowed him to ski, and compete. Later on they discuss the benefits of having a coach and access to terrain ,which would obviously make a great skier. This begs the question, will academy kids who drown in money take over the competitive park skiing scene in the coming years? Some of these students ski at professional levels at decades younger ages than we see now, so why wouldn't they be able to dominate the scene in 10 years? If these skiers do manage to ski at that high level in the coming years, wouldn't that end up just like the current state of ski racing and create even more disparity?
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