She's had two WC SL starts. Levi and Killington. Didn't quite ski fast enough to get a second run {top 30} in either. Next WC start is in about a week, in France. I would assume that she will be skiing a lot of NorAms, starting later in the month. Europa Cups, I doubt. And the WC. Just working to get a touch faster and find the next gear consistently, too. She is so darn close.
She's got a ton of talent, and she is still young.
We, in this country, have had this tendency to rush our women to the WC: MS and Mancuso were on a WC starting gate at 15. LV soon thereafter. Back up in time and it's always been the case. Schleper, Koz, McKinney,
Lila is in a great position to just keep getting faster, stronger, and be a force for some time.
We forget how young MS is, and how insanely talented she is. It's a bit of a problem, in that a good number of parents with talented and hard working daughters feel that their kids are not progressing fast enough or "behind." Their kids might be among the best and most promising U16's in the country, but guess what ......MS had her first WC start at about the same age. One downside to MS's success is "the Michaela effect." Every high level junior girls coach has had to deal with it. Some think it has caused kids to drop out. Some parents are clueless. And some of them are parents of high potential kids. You have really exceptional coaches saying that the skiing matters a lot more than results until you're skiing FIS, and parents push back.
If you have a U10, U12, U14...results do not matter at all. And don't get worked up over U16 results! Encourage them all!
When I was at MS' J3 JO's, and saw her just torch the SL field, by almost 12 seconds, I was standing with a couple of friends, very experienced ex USST coaches. Both said something like "that was incredible, and this is going to be real interesting to manage." They knew that there would be kids who would need encouragement. Because she was just off the charts in everything.
I know recent NCAA All American skiers, sub 25 point skiers, who had real doubts when they were 17-18, and this 15 year old was smoking them. Luckily they had coaches and parents to put it in perspective, and they kept at it.
In Lila's case, she is a year older than MS. She is a top 40 SL skier in the world, which is just tremendous. She was second at US Nationals in the SL last year. Great. She was over six seconds behind MS, as well. Wow.
There is a challenge to this for the USST. We need to celebrate success and continuous improvement all across the board, and really recognize that Lila is exceptional, as are others. We need to be aware that MS is from another planet. As is LV.
Perhaps this year's change to have MS on her own program with her own coaching and support staff will actually help with that? It might be better for Lila, Resi and the others.
It gets blurry with MS being this once a lifetime talent. I had a friend ask me the other day what I thought the USST's plan would be if MS had a blow out with her mother and decided to just quit after next season, go to college and "have a normal life." I seriously doubt that ever happens. But you never know.
Lila is our third best woman SL skier, with big upside. Hope she has a great year. Might be still getting used to her new boots..that happened this summer, and takes time to get used to. Everybody and his/her brother second guesses equipment changes, and they matter. Listen to how often Bode mentioned it on NBC yesterday,
We have a lot of strong, young talent that needs to be developed. As an organization, the USST really blew this for a number of years. Big void. After the 2018 post Olympic retirements, and a few other likely cuts, we're going to have about the youngest national team in alpine skiing.
Sorry for the tangent, and for being so wordy. Guess I think Lila and others need more airtime and more kudos, And I both celebrate what we get to watch with MS, as well as the challenges. Once a generation, for sure.
It's an individual sport, but some nations have really captured lightning in a bottle with building real teams. We have some pieces in place. It seems to work. When in is all about the superstar, it can be a bit problematic. See the Austrian men. They have the best skier in the game, and who knows what else. Before MH's arrival, they were so loaded, top to bottom, in every event. Challenge to have both.
