Team Today was created by the athletes of the US cross-country team as a means to raise the
level of ski racing in the US
to medal winning heights. By creating and running this organization themselves,
the athletes benefit directly.
This fundraising effort will provide the necessary means for
America’s
best athletes to prepare to win Olympics medals.
Team Today will serve to share, inform and inspire – so as
to spread the cross-country ski racing bug and educate its practitioners
thereby raising the level of ski racing across the US.
The Story of Team Today
Today:
Today we do everything in our
power to win an Olympic medal. If we
don’t do it today it will never happen.
Team:
This is the effort of a team, not
just the U.S. Ski Team, not just one individual, but the effort of the entire
U.S. Ski Community. We are a team
oriented toward a specific, single goal: winning medals.
This is our chance.
Not in four years.
Not next month.
Not tomorrow.
But Today.
Team Today and Think Racing
The athletes of the US cross-country team have
developed a fundraising project that will help them raise the level of their
preparation in anticipation of the 2006 Torino Olympic Games and beyond. These
increased measures of support will enable America’s
best skiers to win Olympic medals, and at the same time raise the level of
cross-country ski racing in America
to new heights.
Think Racing, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that
promotes and develops amateur endurance athletes for national and international
competition, and the athletes of the US cross-country ski team have joined
forces to create an independent fundraising program that will raise the
standards of excellence and athleticism for the US cross-country ski team in
preparation for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Games.
Our goal
is simple: To immediately address a crisis facing the U.S. cross
country skiing community at all levels – from the National Team to the smallest
Junior program – a critical lack of support for developing world-class skiers.
Despite being one of the richest and most geographically diverse countries in
the world, the U.S.
funds an Olympic Team that is a small fraction the size of the teams funded by
countries 1/50th our size. As the U.S. Ski Team faces budget cuts for even its
core elite athletes, it is in no position to nurture the younger skiers who are
the future of U.S. Cross Country Skiing. After college, promising athletes have
no support system in a sport that requires years of intensely demanding
preparation where they typically reach their peak in their late 20’s and early
30’s. Our program gives these athletes a place to develop talents that might
otherwise go untapped. Sponsorship of this initiative is not just a good
marketing play – it is a chance to inspire future Olympians to greatness.