Question #1:

During the ABC Mid-winter Board Meeting, the board members voted to create a new division for open barefooters.  If you haven't heard about this, here is a summary of the decision.  As Open Level skiers, how do you feel about the change?

For years, there has been an underground (and above ground) movement to create two classes of open skiers.  Like a Open A and Open B, with the thought that the current # of points to get into open is 3000 points for men's tricks.  But once a person makes it to open, they have a hard time making it into the top for metals when they compete with the Ron Scarpas and Lane Bowers of the world.  Now, with the new trick values, we felt this was a great time to make the change.  The board has made a decision to create two levels of Open.  The first being Open division, the second being the Professional division.  The current Open division records will now be the Professional division records. The new Open division records will commence starting with the 2001 regional ournaments. So you all have a great chance of setting new Open division records.  Look at your new trick point values and you will see where you can go.  You might even want to consider changing your trick run!  I am sure others out there are already training to learn new  tricks.

> > > Here is the breakdown for the points ratings for the Open division:
> > > Open Men's tricks will be 3000-4999 points
> > > Open Men's slalom will be 14 to 16.8 points
> > > Open Men's jump will be 55ft to 75ft
> > > Women's events will not have a professional division, due to the low numbers of women's skiers.
> > > The women's points for open in all events will remain the same as previous.

Question #2:

Based on the new scoring system, can you put your coach's hat on and recommend 3 different levels of trick runs that competing barefooters should strive to accomplish before moving on to the next level.  I realize that this question could have a million answers based on the footers ability.