- Joined
- Sep 15, 2017
- Posts
- 196
Wealth can be a negative as well as a positive in sports. Just as athletes of poor means have to overcome specific adversity so do athletes of affluent means. It is just that the adversities they have to overcome are different. But in most sports, skiing included, you see rich and poor kids that become champions. There isn't a secret sauce. I just bridle a bit at the claim that the new generation of ski racers are richer, more spoiled and less hard working than past generations or other sports. Seems unlikely in a professional sport. Primoz as I vaguely remember your background is in X-Country skiing. Is that correct. I do think one has to be careful comparing work loads in endurance base sports relative to power based sports. If one compared the regimes of a world class sprinter versus a world class marathoner it would be easy to fall into the trap of thinking sprinters don't work as hard. But the physical stress put on an athlete of full out sprinting and lifting the near max squats and deadlifts required to be a world class sprinter are physiologically extremely taxing. It is impossible to put in the hours of this type of training that an endurance athlete is engaging in. I think skiing is more similar to sprinting.