Mitch Collinsworth 9 March 2005 00:54:12 [ permanent link ]
On Tue, 8 Mar 2005, Terje Mathisen wrote:
jay_tegeder@yahoo.com wrote:>> Here's my list of the Most Prestigious Ski Victories.>>
1 Any Olympic Gold Medal>>
2 Any World Championship Gold Medal>>
3 Winning the Vasaloppet>>
4 Winning the Holmenkollen 50K>>
5 Winning one of the races at the Lahti Ski Games>
I'd swap 3 & 4, but otherwise it is pretty obvious, isn't it?
of course after 1 and 2 this is pretty western-centric. i've heard that the number of skiers in russia is huge. enough to dwarf any of the rest of us, even nordic countries. i should try to chase down a reference for that. but the point i guess is, what is the measure of prestige? heard about or followed by the the most skiers? or by the western mass media? i sure can't argue with this list... but then i'm in the west and these are the big races... for us.
1 Any Olympic Gold Medal> >> 2 Any World Championship Gold Medal> >> 3 Winning the Vasaloppe> >> 4 Winning the Holmenkollen 50K> >> 5 Winning one of the races at the Lahti Ski Games
I must thank Jay for the flowers, but although Lahti has just celebrated the 80th anniversary of the games, I find that the prestige has been vvery much on the wane since about the time the 50km event was dropped off - and now that World Cup races are so frequent affairs Lahti is just one a dozen.
Or possibly even less, because it comes after the championship events with ever tighter programmes and somehow cannot help being a bit washed-off affair by tired skiers. Since the "popular winter outing" aspect died out, it´s only the "party" atmosphere of the skijumping competitions that has kept the Games thrilling.
of course after 1 and 2 this is pretty western-centric. i've> heard that the number of skiers in russia is huge. enough to> dwarf any of the rest of us, even nordic countries. i should> try to chase down a reference for that. but the point i guess> is, what is the measure of prestige? heard about or followed> by the the most skiers? or by the western mass media? i sure> can't argue with this list... but then i'm in the west and> these are the big races... for us.
I´m sure that there are prestigious races, especially for national "home team" winners, in Central Europe as well, but I have to agree that Holmenkollen is the only World Cup race with something truly special, and that Vasaloppet is quite unique among mass/marathon events with its long tradition and international stature (which has only grown since the 1990´s after a certain hiatus or period when the skiers on that circuit were often viewed as those who hadn´t been able to make it in real races.
