Nice idea to start the thread. She is a once in a generation talent {ski racing generations are about 10 years, I guess as LV is another, and 10 years older} and clearly the main face of the USST. Tremendous talent, hard, hard worker....and nice to her fans. Young girls ALL want to be the next MS! Parents think she's delightful. She's a good role model, and she should {barring injury} rewrite an awful lot of records! Fun stuff.
Good topic!
I would respectively note that while the video was fun and interesting, it too, is a PR piece. So "we" don't know any more about MS than what she, her parents {primarily her mother who is very hands on, even with the USST} her agents and sponsors want us to know, or think we know.
At least we know that she's not LV, and her social media presence is a bit different than LV's often is. Different people. And that video is very accurate in speaking of her work ethic, her focus, etc. She is a tremendous talent, and she also works harder than anybody. I have never heard differently. I have seen her do drills for hours on end, seemingly enjoying that work. I first saw her ski at about 10, and wow was she precise. Enough that old guys like me were curious as to who that little kid was. She was skiing with her mother.
To shift gears for a second, I'm hoping to see her have a great weekend at Killington. New England is as much home to her as is Vail. We'll see how it goes. One win, and another podium?
A couple significant changes have happened over the summer for her. One, she added some serious muscle mass to her frame in the last six months. Who knows if it's 10 lbs or even more. It's noticeable. I have heard on from a few people. At any rate, she is bigger and stronger. And it appears as though she might have to get her "setup" a bit more dialed in, perhaps in part to those changes. It's not a disaster, but many think it needed to be worked on after Levi.
I know that sounds odd, since she won. The field is just not that strong right now. She won last season by an average margin of 2.2 seconds in SL. She didn't look like what she can be at Levi. She did win. She didn't look perfect, and didn't nuke the field. She "normally" does things that others can't, and does crush the rest! When all is right.
The last time that she had boot issues, it was a disaster that got fixed mid season in two ways, reputedly with a LONG of finger pointing, and one really unnerved athlete. Plan A was abandoning her new boot design, and going back to the old boot and alignment. Then they went to work on a longer term solution, which actually happened quickly.
Not by coincidence, they also made a coaching change, bringing on Brandon Dyksterhouse. Dykster is a rare guy, and talent. He has a great eye, he knows how to actually coach {I know that,too, sounds odd or flip, but it is true} and he assembled a team that sure worked for MS. My sense is that he also made it fun, which worked well for MS. Results were obvious. Do not underestimate his positive influence on everything, including the equipment piece. He is not a by the book guy. Tremendous coach.
Dykster left the job after the 2016 season, pretty late. Lots of thoughts on why. I had thought that he'd stick with her through the 2018 Olympic year and at least for this year's World Champs. But, he is always in demand to do various things, and maybe the travel was too much. Dunno. And, some suggest that "the most powerful person in US Skiing", MS's mom, Elieen, may have had some disagreements with the direction of things. It happened pretty quickly, and I sense that it's framed up that they all parted on good terms. Or at least cordial terms. By "they" I mean RBD and Eileen.
It's still a big change. Dykster assembled that team. He's been replaced by Mike Day, who has a lot of coaching experience but none with a real world class woman {that I can recall}. He did coach a younger Ted Ligety. Hopefully Mike, Jeff Lackie, and the others all work well. Personality wise he and RBD are quite different. Might just be an adjustment for team S.
At this level, sometimes one wonders how much a coach matters. I her case, I think a great deal. Particularly as she has pretty much declared that she intends to race all events. That is really hard, and she needs to figure out the speed disciplines without her reduced SL focus affecting things negatively. RBD kid a lot of work to improve her GS skiing, and to start to get her ready to ski more SG.
I'm excited to see her continue to develop and grow, which sounds odd, since she is by far and away the best female SL skier ever. She's still just 21.
This will be a good weekend to follow. Best of luck to her!
This should be a fun and busy thread!!