Also since there was no public announcement about who made the team, you simply created a messy situation.

Geez Louise - ad-hominem-based ranting on Facebook by someone who failed to
make the US Team he self-proclaims he both wanted and deserved is NOT creating
"a messy situation"??? Facebook ranting isn't a "public announcement"?

My only direct involvement with sailplane racing is as a longtime soaring
pilot/aficionado...not a racer myself, know only a very few top-level racing
pilots, no Facebook account, no skin in the racing game beyond my generic
soaring-based interest in all things soaring, including RAS since the mid-90s.

Through RAS I've gleaned some insights to many soaring personalities I've
never had the pleasure of meeting...and to a very few I don't really care if I
ever meet, based on how they come across to me in print. In my view, the pilot
fundamentally responsible for this "train wreck" isn't the O.P. of this
thread, but the disgruntled FB poster, who chose a very public forum on which
to express his views. It was sufficiently public that - writing as one who
(noted above) lacks a FB account and never intends to get one - was forwarded
a (one of the?) rant(s) by an actual (as opposed to FB) friend, simply because
he guessed it would be of private, personal, interest to me (which it was).

I found it of interest at several levels, the most immediately obvious one the
overall inappropriateness of the expressional tone of the writer's
disgruntlement. I'm not a fan of bullying, self-centered "blinkerism,"
innuendo, generic character assassination, etc.; all of that reflects more on
the author than sheds light on substantive facts. (Sadly, none of that
surprised me, either, given 4+ years of RAS exposure to the author.) I write
that while simultaneously finding myself in questioning sympathy with the
man's fundamental aggrievement, and like (at least two other) previous posters
am of the opinion that the methodology of the Selection Committee (et al)
deserves "somewhat public" self-dissemination (and subsequent discussion). I
hope that comes to pass in a timely fashion.

Why? Having zero insight to the inner workings of the Team Selection
Committee's methods, but "open access" to its results (i.e. names of actual
Team pilots), Team pilot contest records (via the oft-criticized SSA website),
and - sometimes - even minor insight into individual contest activities (via
"the usual suspects"), it seems to me the nature of the selection beast is in
some ways "a kinda-sorta public affair." And as such, were I a member of the
Selection Committee or in some other way directly involved in the selection
process, I would feel a responsibility to publicly convey "rightful elements"
of the selection process...thereby somewhat alleviating the otherwise
predictable hue-n-cry/"bureaucratic cronyism"/etc. endemic to closed-door
decision-making. If that doesn't happen, my working conclusion will be that
someone(s) involved in the selection process have failed to perform at an
"A-level."

Respectfully,
Bob W.

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