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Swede

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She's the oldest female to win a medal on a World Championship.
Stuhec won her fifth DH this season and surprided me. What I've heard is that she completely reinvented her pre season dryland and came in to this season much stronger.
Very happy for F Monsén coming in 16th in men's DH. Yong guy who was there to learn.
 

Muleski

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I have heard observations that Stuhec's skis are incredibly fast. I also think that her mother's role as her tech is being quite heavily shared by the Stockli factory service. Seriously, when this breakthrough takes place in a year when the athlete make a ski change, start looking there. It is certainly part of the picture.

The fact that she is the next Maze, from the same country, on the same skis, coupled with Maze retiring this fall....Is it logical to assume that she is on Maze's stable of speed skis...or some that are Identical? Maybe.

Skis matter SO MUCH. Talk is that LV had one very special pair of race DH's which she wrecked in Cortina. Incredibly fast skis. Difference between her bronze today and a gold? Maybe. As Bode noted, it can get into your head.

LV was very gracious and upbeat today. Was very impressed to see her interacting with all of the other women. Congratulating Stuhec, consoling Goggia. Nice to see.

However, I think she will be going hammer down in the three last speed series. Just a hunch. She wants to beat Stenmark, and third place won't cut it. It's the record for wins. Has the rest of this season and next to get it.

Good skiing today. Lot of impressive days by some of the younger crowd. All four US women in the top 15. Granted the smaller field helps with that, but still great to see! Conditions for the women seemed like they varied a lot with the sun, or overcast.

I wish the men had started from the top. The extra speed over the top flats makes a big difference to the hill. The acceleration out of that start is incredible.

For those in the U.S., I really enjoyed Bode and Porino.
 
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Swede

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Yes Mule, skis are very important. And when Maze quit Ilka got one step up the ladder in the stable. But what I heard is that she completely changed her pre season dry land (actually most things to a layout more resembling Mazes layup). Started to practice with the men and that she came into this season much stronger than before. I bet Primoz has some insight.
Will be interesting to see if LV can reach 86. I'm not sure. 8 WC wins is pretty much even for LV. She's not geting any younger. But the opportunity is there.
 
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Muleski

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Agree @Swede, Stuhec has obviously had a huge breakthrough in her skiing this season. That's actually a giant understatement! It sounds like it is a combination of things. And a whole new program. Her skis are a factor. The company that she left behind has not been known to be consistently fast. Just my opinion, which is influenced by "chatter" about how it has taken a year to get Laurenne Ross' skis to run "reasonably" well. I don't know a thing about who techs for Ilka, in terms of Stockli, other than her mother. Which is a fun story.

Vonn, and chasing Stenmark's record? It is going to be a lot harder than it looked a while ago, that's for sure. Two years ago, I think most thought she would blow right by it on the way to 100+ wins. Agree that it will take her being healthy, fast, and a bit of luck to get the wins.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the season unfolds, and then what her offseason program looks like. I am just guessing that this is very important to her. But, yes, she is not getting any younger. And then she has to stay healthy!

Meanwhile she has more younger skiers pushing her. A lot younger and in their prime. Will be interesting. I do hear that her skiing is improving almost day to day, and I am guessing that means her timing and execution. I am sure that if her hand continues to mend along with her arm, it should be a factor.

Do Swedes even pay attention to the Stenmark/Vonn thing? It some respects it's sort of odd. Different era. Different gender. Tech versus speed. By any measure, Stenmark was just amazing.
 

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For those in the U.S., I really enjoyed Bode and Porino.

As a non-racer, I am enjoying listening to Bode. I see this weekend they had him clean shaved and hat on. :) It was an earlier event last week, he looked like he just woke up, bed head and all. :)
 
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It is mentioned, that Vonn is coming close to striking distance, every now and then when there's a race broadcasted and she is in it. So it's absolutely noticed. Stenmark is by many Swedes perceived as the athlete.
 

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And I guess you don't need to be Swede to think there's simply no way Vonn's number of victories would mean same as Stenmark's did. Once you have 38 races in season it's a bit easier to get to same number of victories then someone had who had less then 20 races in season, and who actually skied max 14 or 15 races in one season. :)
PS: Don't get me wrong, even though I'm not Lindsey's fan, and I like her less and less everytime she drags out "I can't ski women "icy" courses, but I wanna race with men", I can admit without problem she's currently one of greatest skiers. But just number of victories is not enough to be compared to what Stenmark was.
 

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Agree @Swede, Stuhec has obviously had a huge breakthrough in her skiing this season. That's actually a giant understatement! It sounds like it is a combination of things. And a whole new program. Her skis are a factor.
There's one main reason for this... finally there's no Tina Maze and especially Andrea Massi around ;) It's impossible to tell, and even more impossible believe something like this was actually happening, how much pressure and stress these two put to everyone around, trying to do everything for them to be the only successful racer there. Once they are gone, next season there's whole bunch of Slovenians back to top again. Sure there are other factors too, but main is this one. You had people hardly ever getting into second run, all of a sudden finishing regularly in top 10, from Kosi (not this year, but last year was quite good) and Kline with men speed, Kranjec in GS and lately doing relatively good also in SL, to Drev, Ferk and Bucik with women... and then there's of course Stuhec.
 

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@Primoz, thanks for that post. The "every ounce of money and every bit of energy into Team Maze" was sort of obvious, as was Massi's way. But I haven't followed what has happened, on a positive note, since. Of at least to the degree I should.

I do know a young lady who has dual citizenship and joined their development team this season. He father is in the know, and he refused to have her join them until the whole Maze era was done. Feels things are on a much better trajectory now.

Even in the USA, we have had an awful lot of resources go to a very small number of athletes. The few at the top have done well, but the overall program has at times been crippled.

Back to Stuhec, any insight on the skis?

Thanks!
 

Primoz

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It wasn't so much about money, even though Team Maze got about 1/4 to 1/3 of budget whole alpine team had at Slovenia ski fed, just for Massi to point out in every single interview, even if not asked, they need to deal with everything completely by themself with no support (money and/or material) of ski federation. Even if it was "just" 1/4 of whole budget (not A team budget but whole budget from WC team to kids development programs), it's kind of hard to say there's no support from ski fed side :)
But as I wrote, it's not so much about money, as about mind games they were playing with everyone else, and when it comes to this, Massi is real good. Now when all this is gone, and pressure is gone, you have whole bunch of racers doing super good compared to their results from 2 or 3 years ago.
Back to Stuhec :) Honestly no, I don't have much info on this. One thing everyone are (or at least were few weeks ago) all over it here is her team's argument with one guy who does sidewalls. Thing is, he's a bit special but on the other side, so is Ilka's mom who basically runs the team. I don't know all the details but obviously he had impression Ilka and their team will get him deal with Stoeckli about his invention, and of course that's never going to happen, as simply they have no power doing this. They arranged meeting where Stoeckli guys said "no thank you, we have similar technology already" and case was closed, except this guy didn't want to return few pairs of Ilka's GS skis, so on the end it was police and whole media involved into this. On the other side, guy is actually really good in this. He prepares sidewalls better then anyone I have seen until now, and Stoeckli doesn't have similar technology, but thing is it's kind of hard to protect/license something like this, especially when you actually go out and put patent out where every detail needs to be put down on paper, and then you expect noone will be doing it same way, especially as end result is well... sidewall, just a bit more polished one :) While skis with so prepared sidewalls are faster for sure (skis I'm using are from guy who has his racer's ski and their sidewalls done by above mentioned guy, so I actually see or better to say feel difference between normal preparation and this one), I don't think it makes such difference to win race or place 20th. But more then this, I really have no info on skis, as I have basically zero contacts with anyone working for or on Stoecklis.
 

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^^^ it kind of figures he didn't go downhill.
 
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And Henrik Stenson and Annika Sörenstam if we're talking bandy ... golf.
 

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