A Quickie for VDI and St. Moritz Tomorrow

St. Moritz SG – Women

 Real quick, Vonn has won the last to SG races in St. Moritz that were not a part of a combined. We all know that I am not a fan of the Super-Combi format so I don’t really care about those Super-G races. That’s the good news. The bad news is that no one else from the USA has done anything there in the last 3 races contested. Riesch was 2^nd last year and Fenninger 3^rd. The hill has been a chore for Maze. Her recent best is 6^th but was also 12^th and 13^th. Goergl has been ok here as has Fischbacher. But after their lackluster performance at the Lake, I am not inclined to pick them to do anything. On another note, if you want to pick a flyer, why not Ms. Marsaglia who was 7^th last season or Lena Duerr or Kathrin Zettel who were also in the top 10. And Zettel in an off-event. One quick note, Lara Gut made her presence felt here in 2009 with a win and Fabi Suter was 2^nd. I have been told more than once by one of her coaches that she loves grippy snow.

If you love grippy snow, you will love St. Moritz. Above the tree-line and all man-made, this race course is the definition of grippy. Some athletes love it; some think it is far too aggressive. But it also has a ton of terrain and no markers. No trees, no rocks, no nothing. Just white on white and a bunch of gates. It makes it tough.

 Vonn, Gut, Fenninger, Suter, Hosp, Maze, Mancuso, Marchand-Arvier, Aufdenblatten, Goergl.

 Men SL in Val d’Isere

 First of all, I have to send my condolences to Nolan Kasper. Piling up injury after injury is tough on a body and a mind. I wish you the best and please get back after it! We need you! And thanks for putting the slalom first! It was a change in schedule of course but needed due to all the new snow. And to put off the pain of watching the struggle on 35m skis on a 20m course.

 Anyway, you can throw out the last race here as a research platform. Hirscher as the winner is a good pick. But Raich is fading even though it is a great hill for him. Then the next 6 guys from the 2010 result sheet are either coming back from injury or are out. So wipe the slate clean.

 I like Hirscher who starts 4. I like Kostelic on this hill starting 6. I always like Myhrer. And while he does not have the pedigree on this hill, he is just on fire and a different skier than in the past. His set-up works for sure and he has confidence. It’s also a good hill for Ligety, Dopfer and Razzoli. Don’t overlook Missillier in a comeback starting 18.

 My guess: Hirscher, Myhrer, Raich, Dopfer, Matt, Ratzo, Neureuther, Ligety, Kostelic and DeVille. And a TON of DNFs.

I LOVE MONDAYS

I LOVE MONDAYS IN THE WINTER

Why? You ask. Well, if there is going to be a day-off for me in the winter it will be on a Monday. And it is especially sweet after a week of World Cup racing in my own time-zone. And after hosting a long week of World Cup and Nor-Ams, it feels even better. But mostly I love Mondays because I get a chance to sit-down and watch a bunch of runs from the weekend’s action and form some kind of opinion about who is really skiing well and what we might see going forward. It takes a few hours to watch the film. But I put my iPod on shuffle and sit down with the dogs and start going through the best (and worst) runs.

THE LADIES AT THE LAKE

I want to read Kronen Zeitung, Kleine Zeitung and other such Austrian papers this morning. I have not gotten to it yet but I will. It should be fun. Lake Louise was just further confirmation that Lindsey cannot be beaten there unless she doesn’t execute. That almost happened in downhill race two but she still won. And Stacey Cook, who has normally had good races in Lake Louise, truly stepped up and knocked down 2 podiums. I have a lot more to say about this. And it was great to see Julia Mancuso doing what we all expect of her, too. Think about what just happened up there. The USA had 6 podiums in 3 days (all 1-2 finishes). But also, those girls had 9 top 10 finishes, 12 top 15s and 15 point scoring performances. They scored 727 World Cup points in 3 days! Lindsey, Stacey, Julia, Laurenne (a truly brave performance), Alice and Leanne all deserve a lot of credit. Here is an FYI: Lindsey, Stacey and Julia were all born in 1984.

LINDSEY

As much as I love watching her dominate the hill in Lake Louise, I have to say again that I think Austria and Switzerland should be screaming (Germany and Slovenia too) that they should not have 2 downhill races in Lake Louise. It is the only double downhill scheduled on the World Cup. They do happen at other times but always make-up races.

Ok, when you watch the downhill runs (SG too to some extent), watch the Fishnet/Fall Away/C- turn section. This is the most important section of the hill because you make all your speed for the mile or so of flat to the bottom. And the bottom is very, very flat. So with new snow it is even more important to nail this section. But Lindsey does not just nail it, she re-writes it. Watch the depth of her apex in Fishnet and how close she is willing to go to the A Net and pull the exit angle back to perfect. Then she is all set-up for Fall-Away and tucks out of it and into C Turn which becomes easy and she carries all that speed down into Gunbarrel and across the long flat. It is amazing to watch her execute this every run, every year, just amazing. At makes it more amazing is the contrast of Marion Rolland or Maria Riesch starting right near her and trying to do the same thing and having either their strength give away or technique fail. She is truly the best female downhiller, ever.

And to win every time she goes to Lake Louise, 11 times now. Where EVERYONE expects it, and never falters, is just the coolest thing ever.

STACEY

Proud and happy is what I am when it comes to Cookie’s performance in Lake Louise. She really skied well in the same section I just identified with Lindsey. And she was in there deep in Fishnet and came out on line and tucked across to C Turn. She is an excellent skier and I think the new dimensions on the DH and SG skis favor her. She skis better than almost every girl on the World Cup Speed circuit. So a less forgiving side-cut is in her favor. It probably forces her to finish turns more in the fall-line.

But more than any video of Stacey I watched today was her in the finish area, of her in the leader box and on the podium. It just made me smile. It was the Stacey I knew in Mammoth all those years ago. She was happy, smiling, confident and strong. Over the years of struggle since she first made the ski team, I am sure Stace had some tough times. I know she did. She struggled with material. She struggled with understanding the shape of a turn to best make speed. And she struggled with consistency. And I heard a lot of it. In short, it was just so great to see those clips of her just beaming with happiness and confidence! On you go Cookie! St. Moritz and Val d’Isere had best be ready!

SWISS GIRLS

I had written something after the first downhill that I was disappointed in the Swiss girls’ performance. I was disappointed and from a standpoint because it looked like they were bothered by the weather and conditions; and aside from Kamer, seemed to mail it in. I thought Lara Gut was particularly lackluster after she was flagged off during the fog. I got an email from a friend that night who works with that Swiss group saying while they were all disappointed, they would be back strong. And right he was. They had a really good day the next day and in the Super G. Nice work, ladies. And heading to St. Moritz, I would look for some good Swiss skiing in Super G on that super grippy St. Moritz snow.

AUSTRIAN GIRLS

Man, I have to think there is a lot of angst in Innsbruck over the women’s performance on the speed side. The tech girls are fully carrying their effort to win yet another Nation’s Cup. And the Americans will need to come up with more tech scoring to pull the Cup away from the Austrians. It could be a battle to watch if the Austrians don’t pick it up in speed. Where were Goergl and Fischbacher? Someone please tell me they are a little injured or sick. Because those performances to not match their history at all. Fenninger was strong in Super G but almost everyone else was non-existent.

On to St. Moritz and Val d’Isere! I will be back with more on the guys soon!

LAKE LOUISE REVIEW

A REVIEW OF THE LAKE LOUISE DOWNHILL 1

 I will make this short and sweet, or not so sweet? Maybe not so short, either.  It depends on your point of view I guess. But here we go.

Lindsey has shown her dominance over and over again in Lake Louise. It is to the point where FIS should really consider taking one of the two downhill races away from Lake Louise and either shorten the DH schedule by one race, or put it somewhere else. Calendaring is an issue but then they should just go with one less scoring opportunity. Lins has 10 downhill wins in Lake Louise! It is like handing her 200 points in DH before the season even starts. And I think it gives a false impression at the very beginning of the season that the downhill globe race is over too. I know she is the best downhiller in the world, everyone knows that. But the margin of victory every season at Lake Louise gives the ILLUSION that she will win every race because that margin is insurmountable.  So, enough of my scheduling soap-box.

 IMPRESSIONS

Huge congrats and a hug to Stacey Cook! Her first World Cup podium today in second place! Cookie was one of my athletes in Mammoth when I was working there as well as living with my family. We are very close and I just can say enough good stuff about her! I am so proud and happy for her! She skied the Fishnet-Fall Away- C Turn section as well as anyone and used that speed as she made up time at the bottom. That shows maturity, understanding and the ability to execute.

It was a tough day with all the fog holds and all those women who needed to deal with delays deserve a major pat on the back.

LAURENNE ROSS: She took a hard crash here last year was pretty beat up. She bounced back and raced in Bad Kleinkirchheim and the rest of the way. But returning to the scene of the crime has got to be difficult. Not just the mind-game with the hill. I am sure that most, if not all of her interviews leading into the event had to do with her crash last season. And I bet that the crash and return to the scene caused more than the usual interest in her. I was very impressed with her performance. Her skiing was solid, the tactics were good and she had a very nice result to start the season.

TINA WEIRATHER: She is not a big girl and Lake Louise does not have a ton of places to make speed. But she showed her strength and her ability on this hill. I am very, very impressed with her as a ski racer.

MARIA RIESCH: She did not let Lindsey get too far ahead in the standings. That tie for 3^rd might be a very important result down the road. Getting back to margin of victory, it doesn’t matter. If Lindsey won by .01 or she won by 1.73, she gets 100 points, Stace gets 80 and Maria and Tina each get 60, done deal. And if she can turn the tables on downhill number 2 (she won’t without Lindsey’s help), anything can happen. That was a good result for her. Even if she can get third again tomorrow and Lins wins again, that margin for the downhill globe is still only 80 points. A win and DNF erase that deficit.

THE GIRLS WHO STARTED after the long fog holds. All of them showed fantastic guts and strength. And those who scored World Cup points from start numbers outside the 30, in those conditions, made a positive impression and I will always look for them to make moves all season.

 DISAPPOINTMENTS

I am not disappointed in Julia Mancuso. Her skiing was really good and she had some bad luck with visibility. But I think they need to look at the choice of skis. She skied as well as Stacey in the key section from Fishnet to C turn and should have carried speed. But lost time, finishing with a bottom split in 29^th place.  I think her service guys need to revisit the ski choice on that hill in those conditions. And if she gets destroyed on the bottom glide section tomorrow with different skis, then maybe it is a deeper problem with the set-up.

VIKI REBENSBURG: I thought she would do much better. She kind of looked like she wasn’t confident until she got off the jump at coaches’ corner. That is pretty normal at the Nor Am we used to host at The Lake (the loss of that Nor Am is a topic for a whole blog) but not at the World Cup.

SWITZERLAND: I expected a much better result from all the Swiss girls. Especially Fabi Suter, Gut, Gisin and Abderhalden. Gut got flagged due to a fog shut-down on her first attempt and had to go around so I can give her a break. She probably had to go on back-up skis and wait around. But still, that is a pretty good group of girls and I expected all of them to perform better.

AUSTRIA: I know there are many Fenninger fans who read this and I am prepared to take a beating from you. Fischbacher fans will also chime in. I have not heard directly from any Liz Goergl fans in the past, but I might now. That was awful. I don’t know what was going on but for those 3 girls, as talented as they are, to finish between 21 and 31 is just horrendous. I have a ton of respect for their talent but I got the impression from their performances that they didn’t like the visibility and conditions and just mailed it in. I rarely say this about ski racing or ski racers as lack of effort often turns into injury. But that was a lame effort.

 That’s it! Good luck in DH 2 tomorrow everyone and pick Lindsey to win on www.fantasyskiracer.com. DUH! But I would pick Cookie for another podium. It will be great to see her back up the result today. And I will look for Julia’s team to fix the problem. There was a long time during Jules’ run today where I thought the USA was looking at a sweep. I can see that…I really can.

World Cup in Aspen-DONE

Aspen Winternational World Cup- Done.

 The good news is we had great snow and hill preparation for this race and we had fantastic weather. More good news is that we saw some very good skiing from the top tier in both GS and slalom. The bad news is that we have 4 days of Nor Am races still to host. You can see the crews getting tired and wanting to be done. But it’s ok; we will grind it out and put a good product on the hill. The hard part was done last week considering all the fencing and snow preparation. Now all we have to do is produce the race.

Looking back at the weekend, I need to make some congratulations. Marco Sullivan for his return to the podium. Ted Ligety for his .01 missing of the podium. But as Bode used to say, “The hundies just fell my way today,” or they didn’t. Congrats Ted! I also need to acknowledge the return of Werner Heel to the upper echelon, as well as John Kucera. I also would like to acknowledge Andrew Weibrecht’s scoring effort in return from injury and Ryan Cochran-Siegle’s scoring, again. And to Tommy Beisemeyer, congrats for your second score! Build on it.

For the girls, I gave a decent recap of the GS this morning. But the slalom was another amazing day. Bright sunshine and a cold morning made the snow really good. It was very hard and very grippy. Some of the girls thought too aggressive but with the -8 celsius temperature in the morning, the snow got better than for the GS.

 IMPRESSIONS

Zettel is as good as Schild. Or better. But they are both tremendously fast and consistent. They have a great feel for the timing of a slalom turn and adjust well to rhythm and terrain changes. Maze is the same but she looks somehow a little uncomfortable with slightly shorter distances and tight hairpins. Riesch and Zuzu had very strong second runs. Zuzu was as on top of things as much as the two Austrian girls on the upper half. But Zettel was just dominant on the bottom. I was impressed with Mikaela Shiffrin again. She has so much gas pedal left. My feeling on her is that she hasn’t really even tried to risk yet. I am very excited to follow her this year in both slalom and GS and I would expect that she will visit the top of the podium soon. And not unlike Mr. Ligety, I would not be surprised if she visits the top step in GS before slalom.  And last, I was very impressed with MPH in her comeback. She is the real deal and will be a force to deal with come January. She has speed, that is for sure.

One more quick note: watch out for Taina Barioz in the next GS start in St. Moritz. She laid down an absolutely fantastic run on the second run here on Saturday. And honestly, the snow here this weekend was incredibly similar to St. Moritz. As well as the blue sky.

 DISAPPOINTMENTS

I always do this section and I don’t really like it. Because “disappointments” tends to sound like I have some kind of stake in this game these days, and I do not. But I don’t know what else to call it right now so that’s the name it gets. But I was disappointed in the American girls other than Mikaela. And I don’t know if that comment is fair. Lins is coming off an illness. Julia switched equipment (I think I said earlier this week that she might be into January before the gets it figured out?). I just think her set-up is off. Her boots seem to be off laterally and I am not sure her skis are soft enough? She seems to not have as much feel in the top of her turns as she has had in the past. Resi is bouncing back from yet another injury. The rest are just inexperienced and not ready for this level of skiing on this level of a hill. When they come back on Wednesday for a Nor Am GS, it could be a totally different story.  I thought the Canadians were a little rugged today. But I saw good stuff from Brittany and Mitch. But really, Erin Mielzynski is the one who brought really good speed to the hill today. But, as she has been prone to do, she straddled pretty early in the first run. I think the Italians and French were both kind of down all weekend. I think both of those teams are tremendously talented. And I just didn’t see it this weekend. They might have been tired? Were their camps in Colorado maybe too long, too short? Anyway, I thought Noens had her moments of good skiing on the first run and Anne-Sophie had numerous bobbles and recoveries on both runs. She could bring it together with a few more weeks of training. And a St. Vigilio girl Manu Moelgg was the only Italian girl in the finish at the end of the day.  

 That’s it, that’s all I have. Men’s GS Nor Am in Aspen tomorrow! Women Nor Am slalom in Loveland!

Time for Winter Women

THE WOMEN TAKE THEIR TURN

Once in a while, you hit a rut and go out off course. That’s been me the last couple of months. The proliferation of posts has slowed to a trickle, if that. And it is because I have lacked motivation. I have lacked the need and the want to put myself out there. And I did not have a meaningful topic. But now I do.

As I met with the Independent Ski Racing staff it hit me, this is all about girls. One time, a long time ago, a great friend and mentor of mine said something to me. He said, “Ach, Needle…watching women’s ski racing is like…eating at McDonald’s…it sucks! But after a while you get used to it.” Now, I know, it is a tremendously chauvinist quote. And in his heavy Bavarian accent it seemed even more so. I did not believe him at the time, I was coaching women at Stratton Mountain School at the time and working my butt off to be the best. But it was funny. And it made me think as I sat there talking to the ISR coaches. It made me think about what I have been doing my whole life. I have been regularly coaching women as much as men. Taking as much pride in their accomplishments as any of the men I ever coached. Many of my favorite athletes I have ever coached have been women. Why? Because they are not men. Because they have not been expected to pursue sports as careers. Because they are more mature at a younger age and are able to put results in motion sooner, so we all see and feel success sooner. Because their success somehow creates a sense of wonder.

So all of that said, I could not figure out where to go with this sentiment. But then I realized I have been watching the Olympics EVERY moment I can. And watching the Olympics I found myself watching amazing women perform at an amazing level. Pick one: Gabby Douglas, Allyson Felix, Carmelita Jeter, Sanya Richards-Ross, Misty May-Treanor, Serena Williams, Hope Solo or Carly Lloyd, whoever. Pick one. It has made it clear that there is entertainment value in women’s sports like never before. Women’s soccer at the Olympics is a better watch than the men’s tournament. It is, for sure. The women’s gymnastics triumphs were deeply moving. The women’s sprinting was totally electric!  Swimming? Out of this world. I loved every minute of it.

And this takes me to my topic, women’s ski racing. It is NOT like eating at McDonald’s and it does not suck. It is entertaining. It is enthralling. The women are stronger, bigger, faster, more stable and more efficient than they ever have been.  Not long ago, I could pretty much predict the podium at any women’s world cup race on any day. That is not true anymore. The talent and competition has gotten very deep.  Recently, I have been watching girls go at it here at Mt. Hood and there is very little gap between the best and the next. The kids are getting after it every day. They are driving our sport like never before. It is probably the only sport I have seen lately where the enrollment seems to be shifting toward women. In the Rocky Mountain Division there are currently more girl U16s in the qualifying series than boys. Women are driving this sport. I enjoy helping the girls race and train and improve more than ever before. And if the boys are smart, they will start signing up too because ski racing is where all the girls are.

So from there, where do I go? Do I talk about Lindsey? Julia? Tina Maze? Viki Rebensburg? I think I talk about none of them specifically right here and now. But talk about taking women’s ski racing for what it is, great athletes putting it on the line every week.  And strong people being stronger athletes. Whether you are a fan of Lindsey, Julia, Lara Gut, Viki Rebensburg, Marlies Schild, Tina Weirather or a fan of a young one like Mikaela Shiffrin, it does not matter. Watch the races coming up with a renewed focus, and a faith in women’s racing. And with hope and determination for the younger girls coming up through the system. We are on the edge of a great era of women’s sports and our sport is one of the best in which they can shine! I cannot wait for a new season to begin, and I think the women’s side of the World Cup has a lot of stars. It will be a lot of fun coming up.

Next month, I will get into a World Cup preview, a Schladming 2013 look and what the longer GS skis might mean in the results we see.