Tiger Takes the Birkie: USSA CEO Wowed by America’s Greatest Ski Race

When Caitlin Gregg was the 1st girl across the line in the 51 kilometer 2016 American Birkebeiner, she wasn’t sporting her U.S. Ski Group suit.

Most team members do not when they are at domestic races in the U.S., and club loyalty is one particular of Gregg’s trademarks. She rather represented Loppet Nordic Racing.

But just 15 minutes following she finished, there was yet another man who was wearing the U.S. Ski Team colours, and he was ultimately crossing the commence line in Wave 9. It was not only his very first Birkie, but also his initial cross-country ski race.

“I guess I could have pulled rank and asked them to move me up, but I wanted to see what it was like in that group,” U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) President and CEO Tiger Shaw said in an interview on Tuesday. “There had been tons of folks faster than me in that group. The only challenge is on some of the uphills, you have everyone who is falling back from earlier waves who you are catching, so it is a bit of an escalator. But that dissipated. I was nicely surprised that after 10 or 15 k, everyone had fallen into their speed.&#8221

There was a veritable contingent of USSA folk at the Birkie this year, which includes Vice President Communications Tom Kelly and Nordic Domestic Plans Director Robert Lazzaroni, as effectively as star athlete Kikkan Randall, who did not race because she’s pregnant but was on hand to soak up the scene.

And what a scene it was. Shaw, a two-time Olympian and NCAA Champion alpine skier, has attended cross-country Globe Cup races in Europe, but the Birkie was an completely distinct encounter.

“It is both a planet class event and a Gran Fondo,” Shaw marveled. “Meeting these folks who have carried out the Birkie a double digit variety of instances, it’s a whole lot of folks. That offers you an amazing perspective&#8230 I was in a position to be there for Thursday night by way of Sunday afternoon. I got a possibility to take in the Barnebirkie and all the kids races and everything that happened on Major Street.”

And then there was the race itself. Even though Shaw came to the finish hrs following the first males and women, there have been nevertheless die-challenging fans out cheering for him and the other folks who began in the last wave.

&#8220People had been there because ten o’clock cheering for the elites,&#8221 he said of crossing the lake into Hayward. &#8220People are even now standing close to in their insulated boots, jumping up and down, consuming sizzling tea or coffee or jägermeister or no matter what else, screaming and ringing bells for 5 hrs. It was remarkable. That is cool, and it is not easy when it’s drizzling in the 30’s, or other years when it is under zero. I really like that.&#8221

USSA has recently partnered with the Birkie, which Kelly stated resulted in “dramatic gains” in membership for the nationwide organization this 12 months.

Shaw was pleased to meet some of individuals new members. While he may well be effectively-acknowledged at alpine occasions, this was not the situation in Hayward, Wisconsin.

“I had a good deal of truly exciting conversations,” he laughed. “Usually men and women didn’t identify me, but if I was in a conversation and I launched myself, they would type of say, ‘oh! Well hello!’ Like, what are you carrying out here?”

And the CEO wasn’t just speaking the talk, he was strolling the walk – or skiing the ski.

“It was specially enjoyable when I was sporting my Craft and L.L. Bean gear, either about to race or in the race or following the race, and people realized I wasn’t just there watching,” he explained. “I was there competing, if I guess you could get in touch with it that. That created a variation. It just drops everybody’s guard, if they have one up.”

Soon after skiing with septuagenarians undertaking their thirty^th Birkie and feeling his very own small moments of glory when he passed other competitors, Shaw was left marveling at the scale of the occasion.

“There are some season-ending races for all age groups in alpine,” he explained. “The Sugar Slalom in Stowe is an illustration, the Loveland Derby. But you are speaking about maybe 500 or 600 participants, not 10,000. There’s no way to do one thing like that in alpine. I’m not certain if there is something equivalent in snowboarding. Jumping, not so much from a participation degree, but there are a good deal of spectators at the Springer Tourney in summer.”

The Birkie is an totally different animal.

“This dwarfs something I’ve ever noticed,” Shaw stated. “Especially when you think of the cumulative group which is part of it. We just ran a Large Air event at Fenway Park in Boston, the place we had 27,000 individuals viewing over two days and a handful of participants due to the fact it was an elite event. But the Birkie, if you count support men and women and the families of men and women participating, that’s almost certainly 27,000 individuals there. And that’s not in a metro area.”

Speaking of elite occasions, Shaw is nonetheless hopeful that USSA can find a way to host a leading cross-country competition in a massive city. But that would be completely distinct than the Birkie.

“This was about participating and being part of it, feeling it, regardless of whether you are a participant, elite or otherwise, or a volunteer, or you have a kid racing,” he said. “You can see that it is truly component of people’s lives.”

Shaw, who finished in 4:49:23, loved it all, and appreciated how these not racing had been if something more enthusiastic than the racers themselves.

“They had been obtaining this kind of a very good time regardless of it currently being 32 degrees and raining, which it was on Friday during most of the kids’ occasions,” Shaw stated. “It rained half the time when we had been in the race also, and nobody cared. The volunteers at all the stops, the health-related personnel, the crazy men and women enjoying in bands on the side of the trail and cheering for us, the shotski group, it is hysterical. It was entertaining.”

The trip illustrated a lot of aspects of why Shaw is keen to function with the nordic neighborhood.

“There’s a whole lot of fans,” he mentioned. “Cross-nation has a bigger group of participants via all the age groups than any of our sports activities. In alpine we don’t have racers racing their whole daily life. In cross-nation you do. It’s a exclusive chance for the sport to empower those men and women, and locally they support their clubs.”

Shaw hopes that they will assistance USSA and the nationwide crew as properly, but is aware of that USSA has to offer you anything in return. He’s functioning on it.

“The goal there is to figure out how USSA can greatest turn out to be re-concerned on a massive scale,” he said. “USSA kind of dwindled in relevance in cross-country beneath the sanctioned race level and the elite crew level. We are functioning with everybody to see how do we support out yet again with the efforts that are already taking place.”

Shaw also met with Birkie directors, as well as increased-ups at CXC and Loppet Nordic Racing. These are between the clubs USSA consider models in the cross-country world.

“There’s incredibly good coaches, education, and expertise in the CXC division, especially about Minneapolis,” Shaw mentioned. “One thing that we can do is collect collectively the very best practices from the divisions and clubs, and combine that with what [U.S. Ski Crew coaches] Chris Grover and Matt Whitcomb think are the greatest practices, and distribute that nationally. We want to standardize it to raise the entire tide of instruction and coaching, strategy and planning, how to keep mothers and fathers involved and keep it fun. That is a part that we can perform.”

He hopes to see USSA taking part in a role far better than it has in the final decade, when the national governing body’s involvement in nordic sport was largely at the national competitive level and with the national team itself.

“We’d love to see every single cross-country skier in the nation be a follower of the U.S. Ski Crew and to be a USSA member if it can make sense,” he stated. “But it has to be an inexpensive, sensible membership with the right benefits. Possibly we can one day be like USA Swimming exactly where there is not a kid in a club that isn’t a member – they are ubiquitous, and they give a good deal of services. That is what we’re attempting to give.”

As USSA functions toward that goal, Shaw seemed to genuinely relish the likelihood to try cross-nation racing out for himself in the continent’s biggest and craziest competition.

“Even though I only raced as a citizen, it assists me value viewing the cross-country events at all levels now,” Shaw explained. “I get it about stepping on somebody’s pole, and how to get close to somebody at my own degree. If you’re feeling strong and blow by a bunch of folks, you start thinking, wow, I’m rather good. When in truth, you are just a citizen. But it is thrilling nonetheless!

“It’s a taste of what it need to be like to be a Kikkan or all of individuals elite athletes,” he concluded. “It reminded me of when I was racing, that feeling of becoming a contender and currently being in a position to turn it on when you want to turn it on.”