Saul: What’s wrong with sports

By: Isaac Saul / Staff Writer

Posted on 31. Jan, 2012 in Sports

Marielle Berger is what’s wrong with sports.

She’s the kid on the playground who tattles to a teacher when nobody passes her the ball. She’s the dad who sits behind the coach’s bench and screams about getting his unskilled child in the game until finally the coach cracks. She’s the one who has half the talent but knows all the rules.

Well, maybe not half the talent, but she certainly didn’t belong in the six-woman final of the Winter X Games Aspen 2012 on Sunday, and that’s exactly where she found herself.

Berger was in the lead of a semi-final race before she and three other skiers were involved in a crash that slowed them down considerably. While they were laying face down in the powder, Marte Gjefsen and Langely McNeal passed by to finish first and second in the heat, respectively, and move on to the finals.

But the French skier wasn’t going to be defeated. After the race was over, McNeal – an Idaho native and the only racer representing the U.S. in that event – was climbing onto a snow mobile to go back up the mountain when someone grabbed her and said someone filed a protest to disqualify her because of her outfit.

Berger filed the protest.

“I was really confused because I was wearing my mom’s ski pants,” McNeal told ESPN.

Well, it wasn’t about McNeal’s snow pants. It was about a hair tie that was around the cuff of her boots. McNeal was also wearing a band on her thigh for fallen skier Sarah Burke, who died Jan. 19 after an injury sustained in the super pipe Jan. 10.

Originally, there was incredible outrage from people who thought her disqualification was for Burke’s band, but Scott Guglielmino, senior vice president of programming and Global X for ESPN, released this statement:

“Langely McNeal was not disqualified for wearing a Sarah Burke band. She was informed by our race director that she was disqualified for wearing an elastic band around each of her pant cuffs that were not Sarah bands, but were clearly a violation of the Winter X Games clothing rules.

“The Winter X Games has allowed those Sarah tribute bands to be distributed from the athlete lounge and has allowed athletes to wear the Sarah bands in competition throughout the entire event.”

While it makes it a little better that McNeal wasn’t disqualified on behalf of her Burke bands, it still makes me cringe to think this girl was disqualified from the final. Do you know how many times Berger must have seen McNeal’s pants over the last week? Do you know how many opportunities she probably had on Sunday morning to tell McNeal that her pants may have been too tight?

“If someone had a problem with my clothing, they should’ve said something in training. I’ve been up there all week,” McNeal told ESPN. “It should be about skiing and not about clothing and strategizing some protest that has nothing to do with it.”

Do you know how many seconds Berger finished behind McNeal in the final? Fourteen. Do you know how many seconds McNeal’s hair tie might have shaved off of her final time? A tenth of a second. Tops.

McNeal even tried to follow the rules, but suddenly they weren’t convenient. She actually asked for a measurement on her pants because she still believed she was skiing legally, but they didn’t supply a measuring tool and she had no way to fight the protest. That was it. She was done.

Then suddenly Berger – who had finished fourth – was magically catapulted to third place. Fortunately for her, the top three of that heat qualified for the final. Go figure.

Do I think Berger would have protested if she had finished fifth and McNeal’s absence wouldn’t have given her berth to the semis? Absolutely not.

The worst part about this story is when you understand McNeal’s story.

This was going to be her first X Games final. She managed to get there as the only skier for the United States. She rocked gear for Burke all week, and her Facebook picture showed her holding up writing on her palm that says “I ski for Sarah.”

She was going to be another American sports hero, but now she has no voice. She was left broken hearted with nothing to show for all her work. While Berger took her spot and didn’t place in the final – probably because she didn’t belong there – the X Games crew made an offer to Langley: a spot in the consolation final. Her answer was simple: “No thanks.”