Aging well while staying young

No one escapes all age, but many don't pay attention to the toll it can exert on us.

Like wanting to move less, to close ourselves to the world, to lose interest in our surroundings, to become defensive, cynical, fearful, sad, or to develop a complex of persecution and to give up on all the fun and the good things life has to offer.

These traits, just like gravity, are trying to pull us down and bring us closer and faster to the grave.

I refuse and resist this kind of attitude and for me, growing older sets a constant challenge for keeping a younger and ever more open attitude towards life and its inherent supply of joy and wonderment.

America's allergy to world's best practices

Over recent decades, other developed nations have been playing catch-up fast with America and are now ahead of us in more than one domain.

• Look at education, why aren't we emulating what Finland, Japan and South Korea are doing? 
• Look at healthcare, why aren't we trying to do as well as Canada, the U.K. or France? 
• Look at the out-of-control dissemination and life threatening danger of firearms and why aren't we following the OCDE countries lead? 
• Look at the the Paris Accords on Climate? Why does the U.S. still want out, while both Nicaragua and Syria, the only two straggler nations besides us are now joining? 
• Look at the metric system? Why are we content to be part of only three nations along with Myanmar and Liberia stuck with this antiquated system? 

 

This is only a partial list and limited rant. Wake up America! Our “exceptionalism” has simply tipped and is now headed towards the bottom.

We'll soon sink if we don't begin to turn our pretentious attitude around. It's more than time for America to embrace "best world practices" and get off its "exceptionalism high horse"!

Skis and arms control

Depending on the year, there are up to 30,000 people killed and 70,000 injured by firearms in the United States. In turn, the NRA claims that it's people, not guns that killed or maim.

Now contrast this with skiing and snowboarding in which about 50 people die each year, but of course, there are plenty more of other ski-related injuries.

For instance, serious knee injury, usually involving a rupture of the ACL, accounts for some 20 percent of them, probably totaling more than 25,000 per winter in the U.S. alone. A pretty small number in relation to a total 50 to 60 million days of skiing each season.

The dangerous connotation of skiing is often identified as the main impediment to its growth. Since skiing is fun, everyone accepts a risk that is worth taking and therefore no one is up in arms (excuse the pun) to “punish” that sport, and since the pain and suffering related to skiing/snowboarding is self inflicted, society accepts it willingly.

Yet if we wanted to eradicate this source of accident, we'd simply need to ban skiing and snowboarding, and then – with the collected equipment – we could erect a colorful fence south or our border with it long enough to satisfy Trump.

Turn now the discussion towards firearms and apply the same logic to it. If we don't like tens of thousands of deaths every year in the U.S.A. and also agree that it is not a “fun” activity, we should recall all the lethal weapons not used for hunting and melt them on the spot.

So much for the Second Amendment and arming teachers inside the classroom!

My Olympic Conclusion

There is no question that – at least in America – the Winter Olympics are a terrific free promotion for all winter sports and particularly, skiing and snowboarding.

This said, we are forced to endure an overdose of questionable or unnecessary events mixed with a deluge of repetitive advertising commercials.

Thank God, we also had some memorable moments like Sophia Goggia's testimony or Ester Ledecka's twin gold medals in Snowboarding and Alpine, that showed the world that what counted was to ski fast, not the size on one's ski quiver.

I hope NBC will get the return it was looking for out of its $963 million investment and PyeongChang got all the publicity it could hope for.

I doubt the latter, because I learned nothing about the venue. The Olympics increasingly are a big, obscene deal, orchestrated by the IOC “mafia” in Lausane, Switzerland, but we need to keep everything into perspective.

After all, it's only a collection of individual competitions, compressed into two weeks, that have the dubious particularity to be framed and draped into some grossly overrated pomp and circumstance.

OCD, sharp focus or multi-tasking?

What a relief; the Olympics are almost over and we'll soon be able to refocus back into our normal routine and inside our home time-zone.

My biggest take-away during these games was how focus, or lack thereof, played an enormous role on an athlete performance and none – even the greatest champions – seem sheltered from moments of distraction.

Clearly, keeping a constant focus should be the goal (so much for the virtues of multi-tasking!), but Obsessive-Compulsive behavior might still be a better formula if it didn't conjure a form of mental disease...

Team spirit and personal opinion

On February 18, French alpine skier Matthieu Faivre was interviewed after what he thought was a lackluster 7th position which solidified a good French performance as a team he blurted out: “If you knew if I cared about the team performance, I'm here for me and for my run.”

That politically incorrect statement got him disciplined and sent back to France on the spot. Some regret the harshness of the punishment, however is skiing is an individual sport, it's the team, its infrastructure and programs that make an individual victory possible.

Should athletes be able to express themselves? Yes. If so, should they be responsible for what they say and able to exert some self control? Absolutely. While the French women's team is struggling, the technical men's group is remarkably strong as evidenced by the excellent group's results in both GS and slalom.

Now, contrast this to a February 15 article in the New York Times, detailing how the Norvegian men skiers, one of the smallest men’s Alpine teams on the World Cup circuit, handles its team building and stands as a lesson for all teams, including probably the French and most importantly the American that sit at the extreme pole of individuality.

Among other principles, no “jerks” are allowed within the team, no class-structure, rookies vs. seniors or other “special treatment”. They spend 250 days a year together, eat together, sleep two-a-room, sometimes sharing a double-bed and most importantly help each other along the way.

Even when young maverick Henrik Kristoffersen, locked horns with his national federation in a battle over a “Red Bull” sponsorship agreement, he eventually relented and agreed to follow the rules.

Without a question, the Norwegian team is highly successful and might serve as a benchmark to a bunch of other teams that are too often plagued by the excesses of a few that hinder the collective atmosphere and the overall team results.

Too much of a good thing

Yesterday, the New York Times told his readers that Mikaela Shiffrin brought “only” 35 pairs of racing skis with her here at the PyeongChang Winter Games instead of the 70 pairs she “normally” carries to races.

I don't know how she along with her “helicopter-mom, Kim Erlandsson her technician and Mike Day her coach decide which board to pick, but this must be an impossible task.

Between this impossible choice and the pressures of all kinds, including those coming from the media, it's a miracle that she was able to win so many races back-to-back until recently.

Something is blatently wrong when there seems to be an “arm race” waged on behalf of the major “stars” by equipment suppliers, while developing skiers in the U.S are barely supported by the Ski Team.

At the end of January, ski legend's Ingemar Stenmark who attended the Ispo winter trade show was quoted as saying: "I got four pairs of skis for the whole winter from my ski manufacturer Elan: two for slalom, two for giant slalom..."

Just like Ingemar, I “only” have four pairs of skis; they're not great, but they work for me; two are rock-skis and two are in pretty good condition. I feel blessed, content and never blame my equipment for any reason.