North American coverage of endurance sports hit its high point when Lance was riding for U.S. Postal. But once his celebrity star fell, the U.S. didn't have one of those classic races on its own turf to maintain the interest level


Agreed.

For get about the doping for a moment - with Lance winning the Tour de France every year, cycling and endurance sports started to get some coverage. It was starting to get hip. There were big increases in people following and paying attention to cycling.

. . and then all gone!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Daytona is the classic endurance race. One of the biggest sporting events in the world and given it takes 3+/- hours, it qualifies as endurance.

Coverage is still good, but the sport has started to decline when Dale crashed at Daytona. Like him or hate him, he had a huge draw. Since then a steady decline with the Rainbow Warrior retiring 2 years ago and now Dale JR and Danica.

And they allow drafting and rubbing. That's racing....

Next, the United States can aspire to FOP status while they ski AND shoot.

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DFL > DNF > DNS

better overall human being? Please tell me that you know these people personally before making such an asinine statement.

It would be hard to determine overall better athlete due to the vast difference between the two sports. Believe it or not, aerobic conditioning isn't the only element of athletic performance.

It's just stal. This is his schtick.

Apparently being one of the top two or three most accomplished female alpine skiers of all time is just "par for the course."

It's just LR silliness.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Watched it last night...what a fantastic race. Best thing I've seen thus far in these Olympics.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

When you talk Daytona and endurance, I think you're thinking of the wrong race. It's 24 hours and they have to do more than just turn left.

It would be hard to determine overall better athlete due to the vast difference between the two sports. Believe it or not, aerobic conditioning isn't the only element of athletic performance.


FWIW - It's generally regarded that XC-Skiers are the world's "fittest" athletes. They have the highest Vo2 maxes and the refinement of the technique, is significant at the world class level.

The train at insane volumes - up to and exceeding 1000 hrs/year, for decades to be ready to compete at the highest level.

Kikkan Randall is insanely fit. She showed up at a local triathlon here in Ontario a number of years ago, when she was visiting a friend, and with no specific triathlon training, and on a borrowed road bike, crushed the women's race field and most of the men in the race!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Or maybe it was because her skis were SIGNIFICANTLY faster and she came up on Stina too fast and had to step around as Stina went wide on the turn. If you watched the whole event, including the rounds, you could see that Diggins had the fastest skis in the race. Her fast skis have been talked about all year. Kudos to the wax guys for getting the last part of the puzzle dead on.

And yes, tactics. She didn't go all out until the last lap. No need to. In fact the tactics were damn near perfect. All Kikkan had to do is stay with Marit and Charlotte, and Diggins hammer the shit outta Falla and Stina early on, so they had no sprint left. Checkmate.

Diamond in the rough... yeah, sure, ranked #3 in the world, she needs lots of polishing! And she has access to the best coaching in the US. Perhaps Cook is not well known, but she had Vordie, Luke, and Grover on her side for years.

Diggins had the fastest skis in the race. Her fast skis have been talked about all year. Kudos to the wax guys for getting the last part of the puzzle dead on.


A much bigger deal than many realize - having fast skis and fast wax!

The Norwegian Team Wax Budget is $3million/year!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Hoping Harvey gets a medal in the 50K. Guy NEEDS a medal at this point. Good luck Canada.

Vonn - 4 Olympic teams (missed one due to injury) and has 3 medals (1 gold).

Shiffrin - 2 Olympic teams (none missed due to injury) and 3 medals (2 gold).

Vonn is amazing at the World Cup. She doesn't seem to be a consistent Olympic performer though, at least when compared to Shiffrin (11 years her junior). You just have a crush on her because of her political leanings.

Having volunteered at 2 US ski team fundraisers I can tell you that Vonn is not a very nice person to be around. I would suspect that if you asked almost anyone else on the US Ski team in private they would say the same thing.

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I don't have a clue what her political leanings are, and I'm not a huge fan of Lindsey Vonn. I just think you sound like a fool when you claim that the career of one of the most accomplished female skiers in history is "par for the course."

Maybe you just don't know what "par for the course" means.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I play golf poorly enough to know that par is pretty dang good.

Let's get back to the point - Diggins and Randall are amazing athletes. I think their accomplishment deserves way, way more attention than it's getting. Biggest moment in this year's Olympics IMHO.

I think that we, as a society, would do a lot better if we idolized the Diggins/Randall types. There's a reason that the Scandinavian health systems do better than the US...their biathlon / XC athletes are celebrities and people emulate them.

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Par is only "pretty dang good" if you play golf poorly.

I agree that Diggins and Randall are amazing athletes, and that their achievement deserves tons of attention. That's why I started this thread.

There's not really any reason to try to denigrate or downplay another athlete's achievements in the process of raising up Diggins and Randall.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

It's the lavender room. You need to inject denigrations and politics into every discussion...even the happiest of threads (like the US winning an XC medal).

Try to keep up man.

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Diggins elected flagbearer for closing ceremonies. So awesome. I hope she gives Kikkan a turn to hold it. Kikkan probably deserves it more as the US team came up on the back of Kikkan's success for the last 10 years.

I hope Norway honors Marit Bjogren with the same honor.

I hope Shoni Davis isn't butthurt that Diggins was dishonorably voted into carrying the flag!!

See slowguy? That's mad LR skills right there. Denigration, current events, sarcasm, bit of racial commentary, all in one statement. I hope you're taking notes.

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