Why is America so grossed out by alpine snowboarding?
The sun was barely above the horizon line in the eastern parts of North America when Washington-born Vic Wild crossed the finish line in Rosa Khutor on Wednesday.
Wild has been competing in alpine snowboard events -- Nor-Am Cups and FIS races for over a decade -- and has a beefy resume of consistent top-10 finishes beginning in 2005.
His gold medal in men's parallel giant slalom at the Sochi Olympic Winter Games will surely be the crown jewel of his career, and he secured the victory as a Russian citizen.
Wild will probably take some American heat for standing under the host nation's flag when he receives his medal, but that's like trying to lay claim to something tossed out of a second-floor window into a dumpster. One nation's trash is another's future champion.
The lone rider for the United States in PGS, Justin Reiter, was not one of the 16 riders to qualify for the event on Wednesday. But being in Sochi as the only allotted rider on the U.S. alpine snowboarding 'team' is a massive accomplishment for a pizza cook-turned golf pro-turned Home Depot employee who was living out of his Toyota Tundra and struggling mightily to fund his athletic pursuit.
From the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association's mission and values page:
With a vision to make the USA the best in the world in Olympic skiing and snowboarding, the USSA provides leadership and direction for tens of thousands of young skiers and snowboarders who share an Olympic dream while maintaining a strong adherence to core values.
The USSA's statement fails to mention that the tens of thousands of young snowboarders with an Olympic dream must dream of halfpipe or slopestyle or the high-speed X-Games-friendly pursuit of snowboard cross. The organization reportedly doesn't fund alpine snowboarding at all.
U.S. Olympic officials elected to provide "some funding" to Reiter when he set Sochi as a goal.
USSA Spokesman Tom Kelly suggested to the Wall Street Journal that the funding changes for alpine snowboarding reflected interest and participation. "The focus in snowboarding in America is very centric to halfpipe and slopestyle," he said, but declined to say how much of the budget goes to alpine.
The International Olympic Committee grants a maximum of 24 spots for athletes in snowboarding for any one nation. The U.S. used all 24 for the Sochi Games. Not surprisingly, the USSA set aside just one male spot and one female spot for alpine. The American team opted not to send a woman to compete in the PGS or its sister Parallel Slalom event.
In North America's snowboarding community, alpine is the part of town no one talks about. Not because it's dangerous or seedy, but because you have no reason to travel there. It's entirely unfamiliar and maybe a little unsightly. It doesn't mean its residents don't work as hard as everyone else in town.
"If we disappeared, [the USSA] would probably be thankful for it, because they wouldn't have to deal with us at all," Reiter told the Wall Street Journal. "I don't mean that in a bad way. They just would like to put their emphasis on other things."
In a quick text message exchange of my own Tuesday night, a mention of PGS to a friend (one of snowboarding's biggest advocates) resulted in this:
"What?"
"Parallel giant slalom."
"Oh. Gross."
Yeah, exactly. Those pseudo-riders on some sort of uniski with their hardboots and plate bindings. The rigid equipment does little good outside of quick, precise turns and making perfect lines from heel edge to toe edge. Those bizarre boards are expensive and hard to find for the average rider.
Any of the 7.3 million people engaged in snowboarding last season can't just go into Dick's Sporting Goods and leave with an alpine set-up.
Alpine is the rich cousin of snowboarding often practiced by the kids at icy, hard-packed (often high-brow private) clubs in the East where powder is hard to find.
When a rider gets massive air at a televised event and the camera shutters furiously capture the trick (and the rider's snowboard base blazoned with Burton or Ride or Gnu), it's not doing anything for alpine snowboarding.
The small community of snowboarding that launched snow sports into a $2.5 billion industry in 2012-13 isn't about the free ride, so to speak, it's about winning (and who's doing the winning).
Alpine snowboarding isn't the money maker. There are no triple-corks, no air, and no four-man collisions in the slalom races on the World Cup agenda. There's no Shaun White, who is as synonymous with athletic fame as LeBron James or Serena Williams.
It's just not a thing.
By comparison, the Swiss use their entire 24-member allotment for the Olympics. Galmarini Nevin took silver in men's PGS on Wednesday. The newest women's Olympic champion is Patrizia Kummer. She claimed Crystal Globes in PGS and PS in 2013 -- the trophies are the FIS World Cup circuit's highest annual honor -- for the highest tally of points over the season.
It's not all alpine for the Swiss either. Sina Candrian missed out on the Sochi slopestyle bronze by just 0.25 of a point. Iouri 'I-Pod' Podladtchikov laid down an unbelievable gold-medal run in halfpipe last Tuesday, and two of his Swiss teammates qualified for the final.
Alpine success can be had without sacrificing the big-ticket disciplines, but will the USSA continue to give the IOC the Shaun Whites it wants? Yes, and it will continue to quietly toss the Vic Wilds and the Justin Reiters and their crazy boards into the discard pile, hoping that the single alpine spots go unclaimed. Or, as the USSA might argue, unwanted.
Oh. Gross.
Wild married his Russian girlfriend Alyona Zavarzina in 2011. The following year, he received his Russian citizenship and the funding he needed to continue his Olympic pursuit in his hard boots.
The 27-year-old told his new country's snowboard federation that if they took him on, they wouldn't regret it.
Though the addition of slopestyle on the Olympic agenda was arguably the sport's biggest story of the Games, alpine quietly added Parallel Slalom to the program. It debuts on Saturday.
Wild's devotion backed by financial support from Russia paid off with Sochi gold, and he's got another chance to medal in the inaugural Olympic Parallel Slalom race. For each gold, the new Russian will pocket a 300,000-euro award from his country.
On Wednesday, his wife collected a bronze in her PGS race. They stood side by side, smiling behind the safety of Russia's flag after their respective flower ceremonies.
According to Wild, the Russians are the only reason he's still riding.
That's not gross at all.