National Collegiate Athletic Association

The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- June 7, 1999

Skiing committee creates qualifying policy for Central region

The NCAA Men's and Women's Skiing Committee established a policy during its April 25-28 meeting in Marco Island, Florida, that will assist the Central region in its pursuit of championship Alpine slots.

Under the policy, beginning in 1999-00, Central schools may advance Alpine student-athletes to the championships through either the East or West regional qualifiers. To do so, each school must declare with the national office by November 15 the region to which it will send student-athletes attempting to qualify.

Beginning with the 2000-01 season, the Central region will receive a minimum of two Alpine slots, allotted to the gender that meets new sponsorship requirements. The region must supply the appropriate scheduling information and race results to the skiing committee for review at its next annual meeting (approximately June 2000). If the requirements are met during the 1999-00 season, the required adjustments in allocations to all regions will be effective for the subsequent national championship.

Each requirement must be satisfied by each gender individually for the Central region to receive Alpine slots for that gender. The region must have a minimum of four NCAA-declared (that is, certified by the athletics director) Alpine teams of one gender to receive two Alpine slots for that gender. For example, if there were only two men's and two women's NCAA-declared Alpine teams, the region would not meet the requirements.

One of the requirements is that the Central region establish a regional skiing association similar to the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Skiing Association (RMISA) or the Eastern Intercollegiate Skiing Association (EISA).

Further, each of the four (or more) teams of the gender for which the Alpine slots are being considered must participate in a minimum of five competitions that include both slalom and giant slalom events. The Central teams must produce results showing that in those five competitions, a minimum of three Alpine competitors raced in that gender.

Regarding other championships issues, the skiing committee:

  • Established Sunday, February 27, as the date by which the 2000 regional qualifiers must be completed. Additionally, the committee strongly recommended that the regional qualifying sites enforce the binding lift rules and all uniform logo rules, including those regarding hats, in order to help the teams prepare for the stringent enforcement at the championships.

  • Voted to continue the awards barbecue, which was held for the first time this past year, and make it a permanent part of the championships that would be included in the tournament manual as part of the host school's mandatory responsibilities.

  • Discussed an alleged misconduct at this year's championships and determined that there was not enough evidence to pursue the matter further.

  • Recommended to the Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet that Middlebury College host the 2001 championships. The committee also confirmed the following dates for future championships -- March 7-10, 2001; March 6-9, 2002; March 5-8, 2003; March 10-13, 2004; and March 9-12, 2005.

  • Established that for the 2000-2001 championships, the slalom races will be held as the final event instead of the traditional Nordic races. The order of events will be: short Nordic, giant slalom, long Nordic, slalom. The purpose is to give Alpine student-athletes the chance to ski in the event that could determine the team championship in a close meet and to create crowd interest.

  • Requested that national office staff explore the potential for a staging a Youth Education through Sports (YES) clinic on the Sunday before the start of the championships, using coaches and student-athletes who would be on site training.

    Other highlights

    Men's and Women's Skiing Committee
    April 25-28/Marco Island, Florida

    In addition to items regarding championships administration, the committee made the following rules changes during its meeting:

  • For safety in the giant slalom, the committee will require that the inside turning pole be self-adjusting and will recommend that tear-away panels be used.

  • Will require that the technical delegate, referee, chief of race, course setters and forerunners be current members of the United States Skiing Association.

  • Changed the format of Rule 5-8, Uniforms (Alpine) to match the format of Rule 11-7, Uniforms (Nordic). Also as part of this rule, the committee added language to clarify that helmets, pole guards, shin guards, gloves and goggles were "hard armor" and therefore did not have to comply with NCAA Bylaw 12.5.5.

  • Changed the second-run start order for the Alpine events so that the first seed or 30 finishers will be reversed. After the first seed or 30 finishers from the first run have started in reverse order, the remainder of the field will run in the order of finish of the first run. The decision as to whether to reverse the first seed or 30 finishers will be made by the jury. The intent is to create a more level playing field for the mid-pack finishers, and also match international standards better than the previous method.

  • Changed Rule 3-13, slalom gates, to better match modern equipment. The old rule described requirements for wood poles, which are no longer used. As part of this change, such a pole will be required to be approximately 30 millimeters in diameter. The previous requirement was approximately 25 millimeters.

  • Changed the control limits for Alpine gatekeepers for the giant slalom to a maximum of three per gatekeeper to match the maximum for slalom. The previous giant slalom maximum was two.