F.I.S. Control in Snowboarding - Thoughts?
Halldor Helgason recently gave his views in this short video.
More reading here: http://www.facebook.com/wearesnowboarding
What do you think of the F.I.S. control in snowboarding?
Here’s more in depth information on the subject:
http://snowboarding.transworld.net/1000159773/featuresobf/shaking-hands-with-the-devil-final-throw/
And EVERYONE here should join ‘We Are Snowboarding’,
http://www.facebook.com/wearesnowboarding
the Snowboarding 180 Olympic Charter,
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Snowboarding-180-Olympic-Charter/110669505677891
as well as maybe this one
http://www.facebook.com/fuuuckFIS?sk=wall
I have.
In January, 1998, this press release from Burton shocked a lot of people:
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The best snowboarder in the world, Norway’s Terje Haakonsen, will boycott the 1998 Winter Olympic Games this February in Nagano, Japan. The two-time world champion cites corruption in the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.).
Burton Snowboards, Haakonsen’s snowboarding equipment sponsor, is supporting his decision. According to David Schriber, Director of Marketing at Burton, “We’ve said from the beginning that we would support every rider’s personal decision. No rider I’ve spoken to in the past few weeks is 100% comfortable with the Olympic situation. But in the next few weeks, every eligible rider will have to make a difficult decision.”
Haakonsen notified the Norway Olympic team coach on Tuesday that he is declining his slot on the Norway team. Terje has recently defeated practically every potential Olympic competitor in non-Olympic-related events, and is undefeated in the halfpipe for the season. Most notably,Terje defeated top U.S. riders Todd Richards and Ross Powers, as well as Norway’s Daniel Franck. Both Richards and Franck have noted in recent interviews that a win in Nagano without Terje present would be a hollow victory.
The I.O.C. has been embroiled in controversy since it chose snowboarding to be a part of the 1998 Olympic Games. Many in the sport did not seek inclusion in the Olympics; in many riders’ opinions, the Olympics sought them as a potential revenue-builder for the declining Winter Games.
The I.O.C.’s governing body for snowboarding competition is the Federation Internationale du Ski (F.I.S.), skiing’s governing body. The F.I.S. is generally regarded in the sport of snowboarding as non-representative of the sport. Snowboarding’s own sanctioning body, the International Federation of Snowboarders (I.S.F.), had been long-established and respected, yet it was ignored by the I.O.C. when it appointed the F.I.S.
Most countries which will be sending a snowboarding team to Nagano have a national governing body which is a national affiliation of the F.I.S. Rules vary by country, but in most countries, there are national teams of snowboarders who train and travel together. As snowboardingis not a team sport, this clashes with the freedom of self-determination of most riders.
F.I.S. rules have forced riders to compete outside of their home countries, often for extended periods and at a great personal expense to the riders. This also defeats the career goals of those professional riders who seek to establish their name in their home nations; it is difficult for unknown riders to seek corporate sponsorships.
The Olympic Games, thus, will be a battle for second place in the eyes of the snowboarding world. That is, if more riders do not follow Haakonsen’s example. As for Terje, “He’s managed his career very well so far,” says Burton founder and snowboarding pioneer Jake Burton, “We have to believe Terje is doing the right thing.”
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Many years on, and it’s blatantly obvious Terje was SPOT ON!
Terje posted this on Twitter ages ago, it pretty much sums the whole situation up:
I am a bit confused at what the key issues are???
Reading these link I feel like i have come in half way through the story. Even the one above at Nagano, I not understanding why he boycotted?
Okaying read the Transworld one - getting it a bit more. But not enough to put an opinion on the subject yet.
F.I.S are the governing body for skiing, but they also control snowboarding in the Olympics. Everything from qualification to the way it’s judged are controlled by skiers. Snowboarding is its own sport and should be treated as such. All the biggest events in the snowboarding calendar are not considered qualifiers for the Olympics. Basically the F.I.S. needs to back off and let snowboarders run snowboarding.
http://www.ttrworldtour.com/blog/fight-for-your-right-to-party-ttr-still-standing-up/
I am a bit confused at what the key issues are???
Reading these link I feel like i have come in half way through the story. Even the one above at Nagano, I not understanding why he boycotted?
If the megalomaniacal nazi skiers at the FIS had their way, snowboarding wouldn’t even exist. However, faced with the decline of their own sport, they view snowboarding as a necessary evil which they are forced to tolerate. When the IOC expressed interest in including snowboarding in the Olympics, there was ALREADY a successful governing body organising international snowboarding competition - the ISF.
There was NO WAY that the FIS were going to allow snowboarding to potentially supercede their own sport, and the FIS were already in bed with the IOC, so it was easy for them to forcibly assume control of snowboarding as an Olympic event. It wasn’t a simple case of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, it was a blatant case of “if you can’t beat ‘em, CONTROL ‘em, and gradually beat ‘em into submission”.
If the FIS loosens its grip on snowboarding, they risk fading into irrelevance themselves. It’s ALL about self-serving power. The huge success of events such as the TTR tour highlight the many failings within the FIS (the FIS’ own attempts at organising similar events have been a pathetically embarrassing shambles) - so there’s NO way they want the mainstream public becoming aware of this.
Terje saw this situation coming a mile away, so he turned his back on an almost certain Olympic gold medal to highlight the issue - and he’s been fighting the good fight ever since.
F.I.S are the governing body for skiing, but they also control snowboarding in the Olympics. Everything from qualification to the way it’s judged are controlled by skiers. Snowboarding is its own sport and should be treated as such. All the biggest events in the snowboarding calendar are not considered qualifiers for the Olympics. Basically the F.I.S. needs to back off and let snowboarders run snowboarding.
http://www.ttrworldtour.com/blog/fight-for-your-right-to-party-ttr-still-standing-up/
Fair enough - My mind was getting bogged down with the arguments about what competitions were qualifiers.
In summary;:rage:
The ranking system they’re trying to implement is stupid (just leave it at that for now lol), almost ‘forcing’ riders to compete in the F.I.S Tour, instead of other events.
The way I see it is; if riders need to be a part of the F.I.S tour it could possibly take away from smaller events. For example; Battle at Baw Baw, Cattlemans Rail Jam, Dew Hut Jam (a few ‘local’ events that I like to watch personally) kinda sucks that they are making people chose between smaller events like that vs a shot at the Olympics..
Feel free to correct me if I’ve misinterpreted anything here.
To me, this is a non-issue. Why? Well, there is nothing that I can do, by voting or purchasing something that would change the situation. Also, this situation does not affect me at all. It only affects pros who are competing. Yes, it’s shitty and I would like to see it changed, but the only way that would happen would be if EVERY pro refused to show up to FIS events and EVERY pro boycotted the Olympics. What a hit to the IOC that would be! The IOC would come running to the TTR or whoever represents snowboarders. But this will never happen because there will always be people who will do anything for a chance to be in the Olympics.
You can fill this in and send it to the IOC. Will it make a difference? Who knows…
my thoughts are you would never see the likes of shaun white give up a shot at gold like terje did. olympic gold means what in the realm of snowboarding? i mean it’s cool and all but TTR is what really counts. waiting 4 years to have a shot at something most riders don’t even qualify for unless they go to some whack comp in uzbekistan run by the FIS to get in. i remember watching some of it before the vancouver games on ONE HD, when aussies like nate johnston and holly crawford are crowned world champs, but against riders who you have never heard of…i’m not knocking them for making qualifying, but being crowned world champ when you are not competing against those you know to be the best in the world. it should be TTR and thats it.
I agree with most of the above comments, including Gamblor’s about there being not much any of us can do about it. I find it hard to imagine even a few thousand or tens of thousands of these making much difference to some IOC high flier who is mates with the FIS guys. Those guys all live in another world…FIFA is the same.
It sucks that the FIS has anything to do with snowboarding, but until ALL the top riders boycott their events (so yeah we’re also talking about aussies who are FIS world champions at the moment - Chumpy and Nate J I think as well) and they have no one half decent wanting to go in them, nothing is ever going to change.
The TTR tour was and is an amazing initiative but the truth is by having two tours, there are more athletes able to make a living out of the sport and I can’t see too many athletes giving up their dream of being a pro and making money to ride their snowboards for the general good of the sport and making the olympics event “pure snowboarding” which I doubt it could ever be anyway. I wish it could but I don’t think that snowboarding is a good match with olympic competition and competition in general anyway. TTR is about as good as professional snowboarding comps can get but even at the 6star events, I’ve seen plenty of weird judging decisions that have left the riders themselves puzzled.
An interesting topic, anyway!
To me, this is a non-issue. Why? Well, there is nothing that I can do, by voting or purchasing something that would change the situation. Also, this situation does not affect me at all. It only affects pros who are competing. Yes, it’s shitty and I would like to see it changed, but the only way that would happen would be if EVERY pro refused to show up to FIS events and EVERY pro boycotted the Olympics. What a hit to the IOC that would be! The IOC would come running to the TTR or whoever represents snowboarders. But this will never happen because there will always be people who will do anything for a chance to be in the Olympics.
Do you vote in elections? If you do, why bother? I mean, what can you, as only one person, really achieve?
Or is it that if you actually stand up for something, there’s a chance that others may do so as well? And before you know it, your collective voice is so large, people have no choice but to listen?
This isn’t just about snowboard competitions and those who participate in them, this is about SNOWBOARDING - and our collective desire NOT to be butt-raped by people who would love nothing more than to see us disappear off the face of the earth. Their aim is to achieve this little by little - just a tiny bit at a time until there’s nothing left of us. What if we went back to the days where snowboarders were banned at resorts - THEN might it affect you enough to do something? If the FIS had their way, that’s exactly where we’d be.
. . . when aussies like nate johnston and holly crawford are crowned world champs, but against riders who you have never heard of…i’m not knocking them for making qualifying, but being crowned world champ when you are not competing against those you know to be the best in the world. . .
Those events were a pathetic joke, as the results proved - but under the inept, misguided governance of the current regime, that’s the best we can hope for.