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2022 Beijing Olympics
- Thread starter James
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- Dec 14, 2015
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- 63
So… my nerdy little brain wants to know. What skis are they using in this team event. Are they 30 meter gs skis (for the men)? Are they some hybrid ski? Do they have a choice?
AFAIK, they are on their regular GS skis, no hybrids.
That was really fun to watch!
congrats to the Austrians!
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2015
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Duals are still far from perfect. I don’t want to add to the Shiffrin bandwagon but she clearly out skied her competition on at least two of her runs (+.01 & +.10 l think) but loses the point because of the huge difference in how the red course skied.
Course setting is an art, lasers don’t cut it.
Course setting is an art, lasers don’t cut it.
I believe the US strategy was to put Paula on the faster blue course, where she had been smoking, smoking fast. She really has the skills for this event. But, she went out.
Mikaela was on the course, which I think she skied faster than anybody. But not one skier on red course beat a single skier on the blue.
So…..when it came down to the combined fastest times, they had to use Mikaela’s. Still a good strategy as she had been fast.
River would have had to have had a ginormous margin, and almost pulled it off. My hunch, and he will never use it as an excuse, is that when the guy went out on the red course, still likely in his peripheral vision, he might have lost something….glanced over, whatever. Something other than full on hammer down.
I know that you’re thinking about winning your head to head, and he knew he was clean and really fast. Being fast enough to win the tie breaker with a red course female….even MS….was just too tall an ask.
That was so close. Good showing by that group. Looked like a team. Which is a real positive, IMO.
And agree on the course setting. Sometimes I think they should have more good forerunners, then perhaps tweak the set. It was obvious right away that bottom of the blue course was a complete game changer.
I guess it adds to the strategy, and all comes out in the wash. I enjoyed watching it all.
Mikaela was on the course, which I think she skied faster than anybody. But not one skier on red course beat a single skier on the blue.
So…..when it came down to the combined fastest times, they had to use Mikaela’s. Still a good strategy as she had been fast.
River would have had to have had a ginormous margin, and almost pulled it off. My hunch, and he will never use it as an excuse, is that when the guy went out on the red course, still likely in his peripheral vision, he might have lost something….glanced over, whatever. Something other than full on hammer down.
I know that you’re thinking about winning your head to head, and he knew he was clean and really fast. Being fast enough to win the tie breaker with a red course female….even MS….was just too tall an ask.
That was so close. Good showing by that group. Looked like a team. Which is a real positive, IMO.
And agree on the course setting. Sometimes I think they should have more good forerunners, then perhaps tweak the set. It was obvious right away that bottom of the blue course was a complete game changer.
I guess it adds to the strategy, and all comes out in the wash. I enjoyed watching it all.
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Rudi Riet
AKA songfta AKA randomduck - a USSS coach, as well
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Hear hear!
Honestly, to me this was Mikaela turning over a new leaf. That quartet acted as a team. They were "all for one, one for all" in their approach, their support, their chemistry.
I think this has been missing from Shiffrin's career to this point and I'm glad it happened here. I can see her participating in more of these team events going forward. For all I know this could be a bit of influence from Aleks, as the Norwegians are super team oriented in the way they work. Kristoffersen is the lone wolf (kinda like MS is vis-a-vis the rest of the USST women's tech team) and even he is starting to show more team spirit than in years past.
It was a compelling team race! Sure, the courses weren't equal, but it was a good competition with quite a number of A-list competitors. It was far better than I expected.
2nd guess Monday morning quarterback says what if Mikaela had skied the blue course in the quarters? 
I think the difference in courses, while not fair in a direct head to head race, made it more interesting in the team event because of the strategy of who to put where.
The team races were terrific and fun however From my perspective the way NBC announced the Team Parallel race reflected a problem with USST at the moment. Dan Hicks repeatedly and persistently referred to the US team as “ Michela/ Shiffrin and Company”. All other teams were referenced according to the country they represented.
And therein is a current and potentially future problem : MS IS the USST … everyone else are perceived as supporting players at the moment.
I like and admire MS. But at some point Ski Team and media need to adjust the approach, dollars , and other resources to support overall team development or the feast / famine results and handwringing based on the fortunes of the one designated hero or heroine will continue every OWG cycle.
And therein is a current and potentially future problem : MS IS the USST … everyone else are perceived as supporting players at the moment.
I like and admire MS. But at some point Ski Team and media need to adjust the approach, dollars , and other resources to support overall team development or the feast / famine results and handwringing based on the fortunes of the one designated hero or heroine will continue every OWG cycle.
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I also would have liked the NBC coverage tonight not to focus so exclusively on Shiffrin potentially winning a medal but instead on the team, which all the other people are really, really good too
I'm not so sure about that. Once we got past some very uneven matchups in the first round, zero red skiers won a race (except when their opponent DNFed). It essentially devolved into "send your fastest male and female skiers down the blue course, and then compare fastest combined times". You might as well not even have run it as a parallel, because the second course was just window dressing, with essentially no impact on the result.
They should hire a professional survey crew to place the gates. If they can place lot stake with .05mm precision I am sure they could set equal courses. They also could use the same technology to "grade" the surface of the snow to be equal. The technology is used every day in construction and is relatively cheap and available everywhere in the world along with qualified people to do it. This is new event to the Olympics they should up their game on the course set.
Just think if they line yard markers at the Superbowl were all spaced erratically? Or the goal posts not the same offset at each end of the field?
Just think if they line yard markers at the Superbowl were all spaced erratically? Or the goal posts not the same offset at each end of the field?
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Even if the gates are placed with absolute precision and you grade the slopes identically, there will still be inconsistencies in the snow. And that will only be exacerbated as the courses start to break down, inevitably in different and unequal ways. It's basically impossible to make them 100% identical. Much easier and cheaper solution is to just have both skiers ski both courses and best combined time wins. However, that'll make the competition twice as long.
Anyone know what vertical spacing distance was on the gates in the team races? Sure looked short.