Yuki Kushima at Windham World Cup 7

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Yuki Kushima at Windham World Cup
There are only 162 starters for tomorrow's qualifier compared to nearly double that in Europe. Is that just the state of USA racing? There are almost more Japanese riders here than Americans. Yuki Kushima loving his Kashima out here today.
Credit
Sven Martin
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2012 UCI World Cup, Windham, New York Day 2
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7 comments

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CRFRDH
12 years ago
Exactly my point TEAMROBOT...points does not matter.......point is that havin only 2 "world events" in 2 countries which are extremely hard to visit (visas and the shit need) is very hard for lots of riders in America.

Please go and talk to Polc about his adventures in southamerica, take a peek on the movement around central america...fact is, that also taking it with a little salt, don't kill me, but statistics shows that still the DH Racing movement is just beggining in the US to raise again with the appearence of Gwinn, past years, Freeride and overall just slopestyle scene has taking the attention of most kids.

I organize races in my country, and believe me, the scene of these portions of the continent are huge, but even the companies neglect to see the potencial it has, take Marcelo Gutierrez for instance, 2years in the circuit and he is top 20, but was because of Gracia´s eagleeye and future planning he got him where he is at, recently some other raiders have got some $$ to spend (mostly family loans and lots of work) to just give a shoot to the world cup...

Now, if we talk people going to Europe, americans (talking as a continent) don´t have the large $$ to go there...meanwhile, with the ease you can move in europe due to the Union, they do not need visas to move around, can be done in train, bus, hell, don't know the amount, but I bet its cheaper to move in plain across countries that even moving from NY to CA....that is why racing Europe is huge in terms of people registered...do 1 event in Austria and heck there will be people even from Spain racing there...but doing a event here in the 2 most complicated countries to visit, does not add help to the growth of the sport.

Also, don't even want to go into details, because I bet 90% of the people hate them, but each country federation in this continent I just don't understand where they at with the downhill...they just don't care, or definetly who runs them, never hear of this sport....
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TEAMROBOT
12 years ago
I'm not even going to talk about UCI points. We all know that there is a serious lack of UCI races on the North American continent. That situation sucks, but it's actually sort of secondary. In practice, the way most Americans (and I think most people in most places) get to race their first world cup is by representing their national federation. AKA wear the flag jersey.

Example 1: Eliot Jackson not sucking at La Bresse last year http://gp1.pinkbike.org/p5pb6964762/p5pb6964762.jpg
Example 2: Me sucking at Leogang last year http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xVS5RF2ufYg/TgAfQ9cLp4I/AAAAAAAACxE/6nsyycYDXn4/s1600/chazz%2Bleogang.jpg

There are 47 countries in Europe, with a population of 700 million people. In contrast, The USA is one country with 350 million people. Every UCI-recognized national federation gets 7 spots at any world cup. That means Europe's 700 million people have 329 available spots at any given World Cup round, and America's 350 million people have 7 spots. That sounds like less to me. And just a wild guess Sven... I bet all seven of those USA spots were filled at MSA and Windham.

As long as the UCI chooses to give the big US equal representation as small countries like Latvia and Switzerland and Austria, you're going to keep seeing wacky, disproportionate, unrepresentative populations at World Cups.

Anyway, Aaron Gwin's the man.
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sspomer
12 years ago
i think the 7 spots you're talking about are for world champs. world cups are open to anyone with enough UCI points to race, regardless of the country they represent.
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TEAMROBOT
12 years ago
There are unlimited spots at World Cups for people with points (and no one in the U.S. has or can get points), but there are seven additional spots per country per World Cup event for "federation riders."

Joey Shusler raced all or almost all the World Cups in 2010 in the flag jersey. Eliot raced almost all of 2011 in the flag jersey. They did this not because they just love the flag jersey, but because they didn;t have sufficient UCI points.They petitioned to race as representatives of the US national federation, and as representatives they had to wear the flag jersey. You never see coverage of all the Euro's at European World Cups that wear their own flag jerseys, but there's a lot of them. Like a hundred or so. All of the Aussie juniors at Windham and MSA this year that are wearing Aussie jerseys aren't just super big fans of Australia, they have to wear the jersey. When you see someone racing a world cup in a flag jersey it means they don't have points. Fun fact.
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k.shiz
12 years ago
If there were any races in the US at which an American racer could get some UCI points, I'd think there might be more in attendance. Are there any other than National champs? Our "national series-eseses" don't from what I hear?
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CRFRDH
12 years ago
Sven..that is why, in my opinion, the world cup should move move that mainly Europe...bring the WC to the south of the continent and you will double that number and at least 70% of them will be from this part of the continent...but oh well...guess we will continue to see the WC in Europe for the rest of the days...oh yeah, and the US...