Replying to Could there be a US Open in skiing today?

After watching a ton of old films, edits and podcasts this fall in prep for the season, I am now wondering if there could be a US Open today. It seems like in the Old Head/New Head Two Planker podcast most of those guys reference the US Open as to where they really blew up. I am not super versed in the history of the skiing side of the US Open due to age, but could there be a way to run a true open invite event in the sport today?

Similar to the golf side of things, you could have the top 25-50-75 ranked skiers get the auto invite, but then have 10-12 regional qualifiers that would get the top three or five competitors into the actual event. If you capped it at 100-120 skiers, run heats of 10-12 and then have a 10-12 person final, it doesn’t seem like it would be too chaotic.

Has this been tried in recent years? Do you think this could work? Curious to hear if anyone else has thought of this.

**This thread was edited on Oct 25th 2024 at 9:26:32am