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This isn't only a DH thing, y'all heard about the XC olympic drama?
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/woodruff-huck-us-mountain-bike-225122…
Remember those awesome "NORBA hates you " t-shirts?! USA cycling hates everyone, especially downhillers but mtb in general, just like the UCI. Old out of touch men flexing their egos and hurting hard working athletes.
Glad to see he's on the team. Now go shut everyone up and win.
Why does every single tiny controversy turn into some crazy conspiracy that the “ evil greedy gwin” is the center of. When every single interview the guy has ever done points to a modest guy who praises hard work and his team at every step. The amount of cognitive dissonance you need to shit on somebody like aaron with a straight face is just ridiculous. I understand rooting for somebody you identify with more but what’s with all the hate. 🤷♂️
1) My head hurts.
2) Like someone else said, the next Root'd podcast should be great.
3) Show me anything USAC hasn't screwed up.
https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/VitalMTB/Off-the-Bike,3
Its an age old discussion eh? so many articles and podcasts and rants from all of us, but, little is being done to address it...on my part, industry part and governing bodies part. Some more than others are certainly trying to take action and I love those people for it.
I don't know the solutions thats for sure. My wife Leigh was asked to be DH coach for world champs in 2019 and she eagerly took the gig, had a blast working with the riders, and that was a sign to me that "hmm, maybe they do care, a little bit and wanna invest in DH" but, a bigger commitment from USAC seems to be a struggle for DH racing.
I know for our brand (TLD) DH racing and DH equipment is the smaller portion of sales, it's tough to invest in new "DH products" when the numbers pale in comparison to womens and mens trail gear-but, we are invested in the sport, we want to see DH grow and are committed and I do believe product, marketing, know how does trickle down from DH to other categories. Maybe USAC only looks at the numbers and its hard to 'scale the business'.
Anyway, rambling on-good luck to all the boys and girls at world champs, let us not forget Gwin has won Val Di Sol two times and won with some pretty good margins.
Puerto Rico should field a team like they do for Mx des Nations (showing my age there) with him, Cole Suetos & a couple others who were left out but deserve seat time on European races.
The day they finally caved and I spent $500 in entries for XC, enduro, and DH, they announced the disastrous MTB Olympic selections -- I immediately felt awful contributing to such an inept organization.
With the numbers of young riders coming into the sport through NICA and the like, the MTB-side of USAC really needs restructuring. It ain't working.
Back to the topic at hand, I think this outcome is the right outcome, despite how much of a gut punch it has to be to Austin. His time is coming, clearly. (and I hope he kills it in Maribor!)
Sure would love to see Gwin pull something special out come race day in Italy this year.
The USAC officials looked like a bunch of bird watchers and the types of people who probably lobby their city council to tear down dirt jumps.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CSco4O_BzpE/?utm_medium=copy_link
Post a reply to: Gwin not representing US at World Championships? (WTF?)