The NCAA News - News & Features

Scoring change sought for skiing championships

This year's event was the first championships in which competing teams entered only three racers in each of eight events.

Before this year, when the championships field included 160 competitors, four racers skied in each race for each competing team, but only three scored.

But this year, the Executive Committee reduced the number of qualifiers to 148 to better reflect the membership's relatively low sponsorship of the sport.

The move required the skiing committee to change its scoring system so that only three racers per team could ski each event. Since scoring only two of three racers per team was one step away from making skiing a purely individual sport, the skiing committee decided to score all three competitors.

The result was an event in which there was little or no margin for error. If one of a team's skiers fell, which is not uncommon in Alpine (downhill) events, that team's chances for winning -- or even placing in -- an event were virtually zero.

Seeking to remedy this, the skiing committee formed a recommendation for next year that each team score 21 of its total of 24 competing skiers (three in each of the eight events). This would allow three scores to be eliminated, so a team that is short-handed or has racers who fall still will have a chance to win.

In another championships issue, the committee adjusted regional allocations as follows, under policies listed in the championships handbook: East region -- men's Alpine,17; women's Alpine, 16; men's cross country, 15; and women's cross country, 16; and West region -- 18, 19, 18 and 17; respectively.