World Cup Finals 2019 (how about everything in one thread)

[karlo]

As far as your team theory.....No. That's nonsense.

I’m just now watching my recording. Yeah, nonsense. Her teammates are so close, they’re trying to win the title!

 

[Muleski]

Everybody is skiing as fast as they can. Those in hunt for the globes, who can secure one without winning, but by finishing reasonably well{say top 15}, are likely to ski tactically so that they finish. Not just send it with wild abandon. But those in that position are very few.

A team skiing above their normal best to block others...and ensure a win...that’s a new one to me.

The spirit and rules basically state that everybody sends it. No manipulation, etc. always interesting thoughts on here.

 

[Teppaz]

Always strange at WCF's with such a small field, made even smaller this year by the recent injuries. Just 21 women and 22 guys

Steve Porino tweeted that after today 50% of the top 30 women got injured inside 18 months. That seems like a lot to me. Have there been any changes in courses, skis, I-don’t-know-what-else that are helping cause this? Or is it an average number of injuries?

In tennis the changes in racquet and string materials have been said to make the game faster and more powerful but also to precipitate injuries. Is there anything similar happening in ski racing?

 

[Primoz]

There are changes in skiing... it goes more and more to limit. You need to have almost perfect run to win it, no backing off or anything, so you risk a lot more then you did let's say 10 years ago. This includes also skis, that are done different then they were before, with much more aggressive edges which don't tolerate mistakes. And then there's one thing that noone of coaches is ready to admit... physical condition is worse then it was or at least worse then it should be, especially for skiing this close to limit, or over limit. I wrote something more about this, but deleted it and will stop here on last part of this subject

 

[Primoz]

And another overall crystal for Shiffrin. Ok she didn't win race and have 100% outcome this season, but her run felt like skiing at 50%. Clean, easy, no problems at all. Ok course doesn't look really challenging, but still her run didn't even look like training run but more like warmup run, really nice to watch. Yet still enough to equal with Schmidhofer on place 4.

 

[Teppaz]

There are changes in skiing... it goes more and more to limit. You need to have almost perfect run to win it, no backing off or anything, so you risk a lot more then you did let's say 10 years ago. This includes also skis, that are done different then they were before, with much more aggressive edges which don't tolerate mistakes. And then there's one thing that noone of coaches is ready to admit... physical condition is worse then it was or at least worse then it should be, especially for skiing this close to limit, or over limit. I wrote something more about this, but deleted it and will stop here on last part of this subject

That's very interesting because I assumed overall physical condition had improved over the years, with progress in off-season and gym conditioning for instance. Gym conditioning and especially diet have considerably improved in tennis, another sport I follow. Then again this is not preventing injuries in that sport either, though unlike in skiing where injuries tend to be caused by a single accident, in tennis they are due to repetitive stress.

 

[Swede]

That's very interesting because I assumed overall physical condition had improved over the years, with progress in off-season and gym conditioning for instance. Gym conditioning and especially diet have considerably improved in tennis, another sport I follow. Then again this is not preventing injuries in that sport either, though unlike in skiing where injuries tend to be caused by a single accident, in tennis they are due to repetitive stress.

Injuries are caused by single accidents, but even more so by ”wear and tear”. Everyone who has been on the WC have knees and backs that have taken more than their share. A majority have some issues. Important to keep on ”going to the gym” post career (with a different focus of course).
Shiffrin did what she had to do today — clever girl that got a few things in place this season from what I can see.
Easy track but snow surprisingly compact and dry. No watering. Nights very cold.
Next year I want (and believe) to see at least one girl from Sweden in the speed finals. Men’s tech looks dark at the moment.

 

[Lifer]

Today's SG was the same track and course set for both genders.
The best woman was 20th.

 

[Primoz]

Same track but not even close to same course. Same as yesterday for DH. Same track but nowhere near same course.

 

[Lifer]

41 gates, 36 turns, 2186m turn to turn measured length for both. Nowhere near the same? Ok.

 

[Primoz]

Again... same track completely different setting. So yes, nowhere near the same. Just for yesterday's DH... women jump was 10cm high taken skiers right of the course, men jump was going straight and jump was about 1m high going skiers left. Same place today, absolutely no jump for women, pretty bad jump for men, and few seconds later another really bad jump for men which most women wouldn't make. Should we go further

 

[James]

Should we go further

Yep, keep it coming!
Lindsey's retired so we don't have to debate that one. Bode covered it with Lance in his podcast last year.

Would you ski at Andorra? Haven't heard much about it.

 

[Wolfski]

 

[markojp]

41 gates, 36 turns, 2186m turn to turn measured length for both. Nowhere near the same? Ok.

You're debating this with someone who's there and works in the WC world.

 

[Andy Mink]

You're debating this with someone who's there and works in the WC world.

 

[karlo]

You're debating this with someone who's there and works in the WC world.

Taking photographs too, right? Probably knows the courses better than the course setters.

 

[NZRob]

t... physical condition is worse then it was or at least worse then it should be, especially for skiing this close to limit, or over limit. I wrote something more about this, but deleted it and will stop here on last part of this subject

@Primoz if you are able it would be great to hear you expand on your comment on physical condition. I think most of us have an assumption that physical conditioning gets better as time goes by due to advances in nutrition, training programmes, etc etc. If that's not the case it would be really interesting to get some inside perspective.

 

[Primoz]

Nah I'm not in Andorra, my WC season ended last weekend in Kranjska Gora, but I don't need to be there to see track is different. TV is enough to see courses are nowhere near same. Another thing is, SG courses are set by teams coaches and not by FIS, contrary to DH. But even DH for men it's Trinkl who is setting DH courses, for women it's Vuillet. Different guys, different philosophy and views to how DH should look like.
Even though race track was same, it's sort of hard to think Assinger (today's course setter for women SG) and McBride (men's SG setter) would set exactly same course, especially when you consider different ski radius, different preferences and everything else.
But to make this short, just check run of Shiffrin and Paris on video and tell it's same setting. If you really do so, then I don't think there's much we can still discuss about course setting

 

[Primoz]

@NZRob main thing is time left for conditioning. 10 or 15 years ago, everyone started skiing by the end of August or something like this. Today, normal thing on WC is to ski somewhere till May or even a bit longer if possible, then you take some time off, and you start skiing again on beginning of July. And once you are on snow, you have not much chance to get basic conditioning through. Snow trainings require different stuff then plain endurance tranings. Sure time in gym on afternoon is one thing, but if you want to be fresh on snow in morning, you can't afford much on afternoon. Today guys can push heavier weight on bench press then they did 10 years ago, but unfortunately kilos on bench press doesn't bring what you need in last few turns of Wengen DH. And with all this pushing for as many as possible snow days, you lose time for basic conditioning. And we will skip "advances in nutrition" when we are talking about alpine skiers, ok?

 

[Primoz]

Would you ski at Andorra? Haven't heard much about it.

I was never in Andorra, but years ago I was in nearby Spanish resort, and no matter how it might sound (as people don't really equal Spain with skiing), skiing conditions and terrain around there is actually pretty awesome. For Andorra I heard just good things, as tourism (and duty free zone) is only thing that runs there money. So I heard ski resorts are great and skiing is good, even though I heard winter this year is sort of same as we have/had here... shitty.