Ott Gangl wrote:
"In my sixty years of skiing I had not encountered labels that tried to classify skiers until about 15-20 years ago. And labels shouldn't matter, but when you do classify with labels you take the risk of hurting egos."
I wrote earlier today:
"I find the whole "am I an expert?" issue quite funny. Ski the best you can, think about your turns and technique and let the labels be."
Ott, do we feel the foolishness of such labels because we are Europeans
BTW, if you want to have real comparisons, go into racing. You have time difference there, ranking lists and FIS points.
If you want to ski and be a skier, ski and don?t think about labels.
Want to get some examples of relativity?
Isn?t ski jumping part of skiing as well as crosscountry? Has anybody ever seen the champions mentioned take part in a jumping contest or a 50-km crosscountry race? Surely no. Are they complete ski experts not mastering two historically basic events?
You may come and set the criteria of an expert but who desides they are THE criteria? If Tommy Moe?s time loss in a 50-km crosscountry race is more than ... and if he doesn?t jump 120 meters when the winner gets 130, he?s not a world class expert skier for me.
Ad absurdum? Maybe. But why not? Isn?t there some logic? Aren?t we defining a ski expert?
I really don?t understand the need to be labeled. If you want to have the feedback get a video of yourself. It will tell you uncompromisingly but give you no artificial labels.