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FWT Bec des Rosses 2019 replay

James

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Interesting but short videos on a few young riders trying to qualify for the final in Verbier.
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Elisabeth Gerritzen atop the Bec des Rosses






 
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Mike King

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Yeah, those videos of WC'ers show that free ride is actually a discipline that requires practice and technique. It's a different skill blend than WC skiing. Kinda of goes to the proof that WC technique is not the beginning and end of skiing.

Mike
 

Primoz

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Yeah, those videos of WC'ers show that free ride is actually a discipline that requires practice and technique. It's a different skill blend than WC skiing. Kinda of goes to the proof that WC technique is not the beginning and end of skiing.
While it's true that FWT requires different set of skill then alpine WC, all those guys coming from alpine WC tour are doing surprisingly good, considering they don't train anything like this. I still say proper groomers skiing technique is base for everything, including freeride, and I would dare to bet, athletes from WC tour would do better at FWT then FWT guys would do on WC tour. Well it's actually proved already, as half of top guys on FWT were alpine skiers in past including top guns like Eva Walkner etc., yet only one tried his luck on WC tour was Jon Olsson, and he wasn't doing all that great.
 

Mike King

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While it's true that FWT requires different set of skill then alpine WC, all those guys coming from alpine WC tour are doing surprisingly good, considering they don't train anything like this. I still say proper groomers skiing technique is base for everything, including freeride, and I would dare to bet, athletes from WC tour would do better at FWT then FWT guys would do on WC tour. Well it's actually proved already, as half of top guys on FWT were alpine skiers in past including top guns like Eva Walkner etc., yet only one tried his luck on WC tour was Jon Olsson, and he wasn't doing all that great.
There's no doubt that alpine racing develops excellent technical skills, and that WC skiing self selects for not only superior technique, but also athleticism, strength, and conditioning. But there is a different skill blend in all disciplines including free ride and some technique in free ride is technique that racers are generally neither trained in nor exposed to. Without doing the hard work and training in the discipline of free ride, a WC athlete would likely not be very successful.

Some may point to Julia Mancuso as a counter example, but I think she actually proves the point. There were only 4 women in the Bec des Rosses the year she competed. The winner and second place had something like 2500 and 2350 points, while Julia had about 1650, and the last place was 1500. Not exactly close. And the reason? She took a big jump but couldn't control her speed out of the landing which meant she couldn't hit the rest of the features. So, she was the fastest of all of the women, but other that the cliff at the top, missed the rest of the terrain. Likely an influence of her background and her lack of experience in free ride.

Crossing over from one discipline to another, at the highest levels, is tough. The competitors have spent years training for their specific discipline. And when you "declare a major" and pick a discipline, you miss the training in the others. Is it surprising that no one has crossed over from free ride to the WC with success? No, not when you realize how much time they lost that those who are on the WC used to refine their craft. And the same is true of coming the other way, although the competitor pool is smaller and the selectivity of the WC relative to the WFT may mean that the WC participants have a higher degree of athleticism.

The point of this is that there are different blends of basic technique required for all disciplines. Skiing is a broad tent of disciplines. And while race technique explores how to get the maximum performance out the the skis, there is a lot of skiing where maximum ski performance is not the primary issue, and may in fact be limiting to achieving the skier's intent. So while we look to the WC for elements of technique for maximum ski performance, there's other places we need to look to have complete examples of technique and tactics for skiing writ larger.

Mike
 

James

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Some may point to Julia Mancuso as a counter example, but I think she actually proves the point. There were only 4 women in the Bec des Rosses the year she competed. The winner and second place had something like 2500 and 2350 points, while Julia had about 1650, and the last place was 1500. Not exactly close. And the reason? She took a big jump but couldn't control her speed out of the landing which meant she couldn't hit the rest of the features. So, she was the fastest of all of the women, but other that the cliff at the top, missed the rest of the terrain.
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Well here's where one misses the Fis as the Fwt results are sparse with little info.
She was basically the same point spread from 2nd place as 2nd was from first. She would also have placed 3rd in points in the Men, though they're probably not comparable. Each place does seem to be 300 points down in both men and women.

Regardless, hardly warrants a "not good" asessment of her performance. Besides, we're talking turns.

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Mike King

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View attachment 74712
She was basically the same point spread from 2nd place as 2nd was from first. She would also have placed 3rd in points in the Men, though they're probably not comparable. Each place does seem to be 300 points down in both men and women.

Regardless, hardly warrants a "not good" asessment of her performance. Besides, we're talking turns.
And much closer to last than to second, or first. And I have little doubt that if she trained for the event, she would improve. My point was really that the WC is the not be all and end all of skiing. We can learn something from watching the technique of WC skiers, but their technique is not the full technique needed to be a complete skier.
 

James

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And much closer to last than to second, or first. And I have little doubt that if she trained for the event, she would improve. My point was really that the WC is the not be all and end all of skiing. We can learn something from watching the technique of WC skiers, but their technique is not the full technique needed to be a complete skier.
This is getting ridiculous. Candide Thovex, who finished third, was closer to last than first too. So, she did as well as Candide did in his bracket. :ogcool:

Your point doesn't hold up for "skiing" unless skiing includes tricks off features which is where you score big points. That would be aerial maneuvers. Turn wise, she'd be at the top. On terrain that very few ski.
 

Primoz

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Actually Mike this shows pretty much opposite ;) While "WC technique" it's not full technique to be complete skier, it's pretty darn close... except for dropping bottomless cliffs, and that's what brings points in FWT, but until very recent, most of FWT riders were anything but good in this part either ;) If you looks last year's season, men competition was exactly that... if I drop that cliff and survive, I'm winning, otherwise I'm off the hill with chopper. Not really much of technique or anything else but just how much you dare and how much luck you have. But I admit this year stuff was A LOT better, but also headless cliff dropping was gone.
But again, Jules made it down pretty good and not last. Anyone of guys or girls on list @James posted would be dead last on WC race (regardless if it would be SL, DH or anything in between), if they would even made it to finish.
Don't get me wrong, I like watching FWT, I love freeride, to be honest, I enjoy it nowadays even more then speeding down icy track with race skis on, but as I know few of these people personally, and I sometimes even ski with them, I can easily say their skiing technique is very limited, at best.
 
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Eric267

Eric267

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Kicking Horse stop from earlier this afternoon

Women start 0:32:00*
The women absolutely slayed it today!! Probably the highest quality skiing out of the ladies to date ever. Definitely worth a watch, really impressive. All runs completed

Men’s start 1:31:00*
Lots of carnage on the men’s side. As always, lots of different styles to the way the skiers attack the face. Yu Sasaki of Japan stomping a massive drop was the most impressive for me but didn’t score well due to a bobble at the start

If you missed Japan from a few weeks back
 

robertc3

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Agree on the women's skiing at Kicking Horse. It was amazing. So many great line and so much courage to just charge that face. It was beautiful skiing.
 

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