A little story: When I was a teenager, I was a ski racer – a pretty good one too. As a 16 and then 17 year old, I made the U.S. junior national team and traveled all over North America and Europe racing. After high school I set my sights on racing for the U, so I wrote the ski coach – Pat Miller at the time – a letter. In it, I bragged about being on the junior national team and how my FIS (International Ski Federation) points were 55 in slalom and 65 in giant slalom (lower points = better, in ski racing).
I got a letter back saying basically “thank you for your interest in skiing at the U. Unfortunately we don’t even consider skiers who have over 40 points in either discipline…have a nice day.” In other words, it’s easier to make the U.S. jr. national team than the Utah ski team.
Great to see the team win another championship – what a phenomenal team of talented athletes!