W GS ÅRE 2019

[Primoz]

So how would you tune and wax for today’s conditions with “ball bearing” “snow-like compound”?

Tunning for SL and GS is pretty much only one... as sharp as possible Waxing on the other side, doesn't really play much of a role. Contrary to U12 kid races, in WC fluoro overlays are very very rarely used in SL races, and in GS it's only to give good feel to racer out of start. Skis are on edges most of time, so wax doesn't play that much of a role. But waxing for yesterday's conditions is actually super easy. It's much harder to wax for dry snow at -15c then for wet warm snow. My personal pick would be mixture of Swix HF8BWX and HF10BWX with either FC8X or HWC Warm as overlay.

 

[Swede]

Nope, Ales is since spring with Stuhec. He was never Vonn's serviceman, even when he was with US team. PS: And spelling is right, in Slovenia we don't have complicated words with multiple letters together. So when you think you have it wrong, it's most likely right
As far as "Olsson wanted the WCP:s to be settled on snow and not on ice" goes, it's nice idea, but reality is different. When you have so much racing going on same course, you need to start with pure ice, especially as you never know how weather will evolve. 14 days is pretty long time and so many races and training on same course make it even worse. Sure this makes it sort of weird for speed, as you actually start speed week on pure ice, which, especially for women, is not really normal, but as I wrote, if you want to have good last few races, there's really no other option.

Yes, he’s Stuhecs tech. Correct. He’s made a few winning skis and there’s a whole story to the 2007 pair which probably have heard. Re the surface you are generally right of course, but I think you need to look at the specifics. There was a last minute change done where men’s comb SL where moved and a course (gästrappet) was ordered by FIS to be opened up. That decision created a mess for the comb SL as well as the W GS. Surfaces were pretty damned hard, but a bit less icy and more grippy. Inmo the wrong decision was made. Now Olsson and his staff needs to deal with it.

 

[Primoz]

When it comes to snow, at least on last minute call, it's always FIS decision, and local organizer just needs to nod and do whatever FIS guys say. On one side I agree, as they have way more experience with this then any local organizer that makes one race a season, or maybe not even that, but on the other side, some guys over there at FIS have some weird ideas too.

 

[Swede]

When it comes to snow, at least on last minute call, it's always FIS decision, and local organizer just needs to nod and do whatever FIS guys say. On one side I agree, as they have way more experience with this then any local organizer that makes one race a season, or maybe not even that, but on the other side, some guys over there at FIS have some weird ideas too.

To be fair to FIS, weather changed very rapidly in an unpredictable and unusual way that, aparently, no one saw coming. How that is possible, I don't know. But weather don't get dictated. Not even by FIS. There has been some loud whining, especially from the Italians about the bad weather. But it looks like it's politics for Milano/Cortina 2022 Olympics (Åre/stockholm is the only contender). If you ask me (and a majority of Sweden) they can have it. The most sad part inmo for this WCP is that the wind has been so strong on the top that the speed events have been shortened. Tracks have still been challenging, but too short. The conditions have been tough with wind and bad visibility in a few cases, but to my judgement they have all been fair and safe. The M DH should have been moved inmo though, just to at leat get a chance to go from the top. I the end, everyone had to deal with the same crap. Sure, everyone wants to ski in sunshine on a perfectly smooth track, but alpine racing is an outdoor sport. I think we need to respect the performance of the medal winners. They were better prepared and handled the conditions better than the others.

 

[Primoz]

Personally I think 1min DH races are joke, especially on WCH, but you can't do anything. If nature decides to have it this way, you can either wait for god knows how long, or you run it. And nowadays, with current schedules, especially TV, you can't postpone things for much. It's nothing organizer can do, no matter how good they are prepared. When wind, snow and rain come you can just sit and watch and get best out of if. And in these situation 1min DH race was best that can be taken out of this.
I'm sure there's gonna be 1000s of smartasses telling "but give WCH to place where weather is better", and while I agree sometimes they have super stupid decisions (especially with IBU and biathlon WC pushing early season (early December) races down to middle of Europe where's always problem with snow this early, and keeping middle winter races in Scandinavia, where's always problem with too cold weather in January/February, as biathlon and xc have limits of -19c for race to be run), I still don't see any place on Earth that can guarantee that in 4 or 5 years time, they will have perfect snow conditions and perfect weather 14 days long. So we need to live with what nature gives us.... sometimes that's 1min DH run
For fairness or not... I don't know if it was fair or not, for this what have been talking with friend, men DH was a bit on limit when it comes to fairness, but he's also personally involved in this, as I'm sure he and his racers expected more. But when looking just results, I would say medals in every single race until now were split to racers that are in top 3 all season long. Maybe women speed and no medals for Austrians that were on every single podium until now this season, is a bit off, but that doesn't necessarily be because of conditions.