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U.S. ski racers need to learn how to ski out of the back seeds to score on the World Cup.

Rudi Riet

AKA songfta AKA randomduck - a USSS coach, as well
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SG skis only on netted venues here, but we don't have any management-imposed restrictions on GS skis. We do ask our kids to stay on groomed terrain with them because their ability to find obstacles and damage skis is impressive even on trails that have good snow cover, and we try to be cognizant of crowds when picking times and places to let them ski GS.

We don't have management imposed restrictions on GS or SG skis - tho skiing SG at a tinly molehill like Liberty would be silly, as is trying to muscle 30m FIS GS skis (you barely get up to speed before you need to hit the brakes).

But the athletes need miles on GS and SG skis, regardless. The latter typically comes at SG oriented camps/workshops immediately before SG races, the former whenever we can do it. This season we had only a handful of days when we had enough terrain open to make meaningful and productive skiing on GS skis a possibility. To wit: my team had one GS gate training session all season. Even worse: it was a night session that only had a handful of athletes in attendance.

It's where programs that can close trails completely have a distinct edge. The past two days I've had the pleasure of skiing at Utah Olympic Park's excellent alpine training facility. Their new GS/SG trail (which was only opened less than two weeks ago) is amazing: rolling up top, then some steeper pitches where the trail goes to an 80 meter width. Athletes can open the throttle and really learn how their skis work at speed.

I absolutely do see value in skiing soft and three-dimensional snow on race skis, but I'd point out that part of the reason we did that decades ago is that modern all-mountain and powder skis didn't exist. While it might be a good thing for skill development, asking a kid to ski race skis on a powder day and leave the wider, rockered skis in the locker room isn't exactly good for promoting lifelong love of sport.

I respectfully disagree here. Sure, the widebody skis are fun - but so are long GS and SG skis, provided you have the real estate to use them. Same with skiing powder on 155/165 SL skis - which is something I did with my athletes last November at Vail. They were freaked out at first ("how am I supposed to ski this snow on these skis?") but they soon found out the balance point and how to work terrain under the powdery top. The next day when we were back on firm snow they had far better fore-aft and lateral balance - it was a breakthrough moment.

And athletes need to learn how to pilot race skis in non-ideal snow conditions. East coast skiers who almost always train on "the surface" (i.e. hardpack and boilerplate) tend to over-ski softer surfaces and are bewildered by ruts, chop, and sough. Inversely, western skiers who see more variable conditions tend to ski more two-footed and flail when the surface is truly solid. There is a benefit to training on all surfaces with race skis: getting used to how a ski that doesn't do all the work for you (a 25-30m GS ski needs a lot more input than a 15-18m big mountain ski), learning how to handle when these skis get tugged in unintended directions.

An aside that I've mentioned before on this site: when I was racing (and yes, this was... ahem... a while ago) my team prepared for the first DH races of the season by skiing older GS skis (205-210cm) in powder, trees, chutes, cliff drops, moguls, etc., as the early season snow just kept falling. Other teams tried to get more proper speed training as preparation. My team took 7 of the top 10 placings at the DH races and I give most of the credit to getting out there, learning how long skis worked in all kinds of snow, terrain, and situations. We honed our overall skiing skills, loaded more technical "arrows" into our skiing "quiver."

I always smile when athletes I coach go free skiing after races. A couple weekends ago that was the case at PA Governor's Cup Finals at Elk Mountain: the athletes went out and skied the whole mountain, some on wider skis, but most on a racing ski. These athletes also happen to do really well at Eastern regional races because they know how to adapt - at least that's how it reads to me. And their fundamental technique is rock solid - with this kind of free skiing reinforcing the good stuff.

Just my $0.02 - YMMV.
 

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