For all the environmental talk you get from all kinds of granola big mountain skiers and ski companies, you don’t hear any come out like Scotty Wittlake and call out the Olympics for being so damaging environmentally and economically. Where is Mark Abma and other socially conscious skiers on this issue or are our big-name skiers scared to upset their big money sponsors like Salomon who will be sending teammates Bobby Brown and Simon Dumont to the Olympics?
Where are the big name pipe skiers who are going to boycott the games like Terje did for social reasons like corruption? Where is the open dialogue and debate in skiing? I’m not asking where are the 14 year-olds arguing on message boards. I’m wondering where are the pro skiers on this issue. I find it hard to believe every skier is in lock step with freeskiing being added to the Olympics and the Olympics in general. This seems apparent in the SBC Skier interview with Anthony Boronowski from last July. Boronowski is the only skier I’ve heard verbally come out against it and he implies there are many more who are silent. In a Freeskier article that listed initial responses to skiing slopestyle being added to the Olympics, every response was positive until the final one from Jacob Wester, which was coincidently buried at the bottom.
So in this convoluted mess of a post, all I’m saying is where is the healthy debate? When will lines actually be drawn in the freeskiing community? Because as of now, the skiing community looks like a bunch of corporate lap dogs. So come on skiing! These are the same Olympics that for the past 15 years refused to recognize skiing as it really is, until it was worthwhile financially to put Bobby Brown doing triples and quad corks and Simon Dumont airing 25 feet out of the pipe on center stage. Do you really think they have the best intentions? Does “free” skiing really fit within an Olympic governing body? Does any pro skier question the ski industry based on social issues?
The youth will have their opinions but they don’t know any better. We need the true thoughts from those inside the industry, skiers. Maybe BroBomb can become that place going forward.
#OccupyHalfpipes
