When this was brought up on a skiing forum I'm on a former competitive skicross racer brought up how its induction into the olympics and consequent subjection to FIS control basically killed the "fun" parts of the sport:
Quote:
"Ski Cross" used to be the dark horse of Ski Racing, where racers would go to get away from the spandex, the rules, regulations, teams, coaches, etc. There used to be 2 major thriving pro tours, the Honda Ski Tour (Jeep 48 straight) and the Saab/Salomon Crossmax series with multiple stops and large prize purses and other numerous one-off events and stops (tremblant spin fest). We used to wear the jerseys that were given to us and whatever pants we wanted, races involved concerts, parties and they were super fun and not at all rigid and as "straight edge" as racing was. The courses were always super fun and very innovative, full of big jumps and crazy features.
Boom, Ski-Cross gets in the Olympics. Number of FIS WC stops quadruples. Pro-circuit tours all die out. Spandex is brought back in. People now travel on teams with techs, rules, obligations and it's like alpine racing all over again. Now it seems most of the European Ski Cross races are all like Super G courses with pro bumps in the middle. It's like racing... with bumps. A far cry from the super fun featured courses on pro circuits.
For me, having to give up my snowmobile/pow skis was a deal breaker, and is now why I'm in the backcountry.
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With pipe and slope now in the 2014 games, all of this is understandably making freeskiers a little nervous.