Good points, Rudi. I've felt the same way, and was actually REAL surprised to see this unfold. The most "powerful" and influential person on Team Shiffrin is her mother Eileen. Her manager, Kilian Albrecht is also heavily involved in everything. They reached out to broker the deal, as I understand it, to have Brandon Dysksterhouse move from SSCV to coach her. Her skiing has been on a very high trajectory since that move, last January. She was poised to have a monster GS year, and to open a lot of eyes in SG.
So, Frida Hansdotter now has a 305 point lead over MS in the SL standings. There are three SL's left, along with the "City Event" in Stockholm. MS isn't mathematically out of it, but all Frida needs to do is put together 96 points in four races, even if MS were to sweep all four. Barring injury, I think Hansdotter has this in the bag. And I am hoping that we don't see any more leaders go down with season ending injuries. It will take the perfect storm of MS running the table, and the other leaders falling flat for this to happen. So, I hope the motivation isn't to win the globe, as that is a long shot to say the least.
You're right on the money that training at Loveland is nothing like her next three starts. I am reasonable sure that Dykster has made that clear, and that there is universal agreement among all that she's ready. Doesn't mean it's smart, IMO, when looking at potentially a VERY long career ahead of her. Heck, she turns 21 in March. Maybe we're conservative.....
I'm still confused on a bunch of conflicting reports about the injury, and recovery. Rarely have I seen such divergent "reports" with an athlete like this. The bruise {if as severe as reported initially} is nothing to screw around with, regardless of her ability to tolerate the pain. I know two WC skiers whose careers ended because they tried to push through tibial plateau bruises too early. I had been 100% convinced, knowing some of the players in this, that the plan would be to hold her back, have her on snow, doing her drills, working with a rehab coach, and being ready to go full gas during her summer training blocks. Then hit Soelden on fire, and contend for the overall next year.
But like I said above, I had this all wrong. People who I felt had a handle on this either had it wrong, or the whole injury was underestimated. That later part, how bad was this injury, and what was this injury is still subject to a lot of speculation. She's coming back 3 months and 2 days after what sounded like a pretty severe tear, and sprain. That's pretty quick. Those on forums like this haven't spent any time hanging around the WC, or the EC...where the hills and surfaces are worse.
At any rate, I hope she's ready. I've heard she is. I also hope that there is zero thought of having her race SG in the three venues left, or combined, or for that matter even the two GS, this late in the season. Why?
As I said, I've had lousy info on this. I normally don't post unless I have some reasonable "intel." But interestingly, people who normally are in the know are telling me things like "this is really strange." I'll leave it at that.
Once in a generation talent, and driven. Surrounding by a great support team. Have to assume they're doing all the right things, and that she's ready. Anything else makes no sense to me.
