Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

PostNouveau posted:

What's with the extra poles in the slalom? It's hard to tell how they know to ignore them.
Every "gate" is really a set of two gates, one the inside gate and the other the outside gate. There is a pair of blue sticks several meters apart and you have to ski between the two of them, then a pair of red sticks and you ski between those two, etc.

The combinations have these pairs set vertically with the fall line instead of horizontally, so instead of inside-outside the gates are more uphill-downhill. How close you want to get to any given gate depends on the relative position of other gates before and after it. So in some cases you want to be right on top of the gate and knock it down with your shins, but in other cases you're aiming no where near it because you're setting up for the next one.

This link is busted.

Here is a very poorly drawn picture. This is a birds-eye view, and the black line illustrates the direction you must go between each pair of gates. You can see why the fastest line often doesn't go close to one half of each pair.

bawfuls fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Feb 22, 2018

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

There’s square brackets in the file name, of course, so I have no idea how to make a proper link for it. But if you copy/paste the full url it works.

E here’s a link shortener to it http://bit.ly/2HBo9Ih

bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

Kalman posted:

There’s square brackets in the file name, of course, so I have no idea how to make a proper link for it. But if you copy/paste the full url it works.

E here’s a link shortener to it http://bit.ly/2HBo9Ih
The diagrams on pages 19 and 20 of this are better than my dumb paint picture.

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005

Slalom is single pole now :ssh:

But yeah, thanks for drawing that while I was watching the hockey lol. It's usually fairly obvious when you're actually skiing which gate is the exit one and which one is the next turning gate, but I have definitely DNFed a couple of races by going around the exit gate of a combo and it's super embarassing to do :negative:

African AIDS cum
Feb 29, 2012


Welcome back, welcome back, welcome baaaack
Thats why I just follow the ruts. Never lets me down

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005
Also I'm super sick and everything sucks but that was a really awesome result for Gisin, I wasn't surprised after Shiffrin had a rather average downhill run and Gisin had a great one.

Even if she'd made it to the finish, I'd have been shocked if Lindsey was going to podium. She really isn't good at slalom anymore (though she trains it more than she pretends to - the entire time she was in NZ at the same time as I was this year she was on the short skis) and would have needed a bigger buffer in the downhill. Canadian Valerie Grenier did amazingly well though, her slalom run was only 1.3 seconds back after a good downhill run, too.

Kristoffersen going out was legit a huge surprise. So was Hirscher, but Kristoffersen has something like 6 DNFs in his entire FIS career. That's so insanely rare, especially for a slalom specialist, where most people have a DNF rate in the 20-50% range. Hirscher is also pretty consistent, but not quite as much. And Kristoffersen has dealt with the pressure and handled it really well in the past. I think on World Cup he has won every single race where he's been the leader after the first run. It was very surprising, but made for an insanely exciting finish.

Tall Swiss Dude just sitting down on the ground when he was a confirmed medal winner was super :3:

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005

African AIDS cum posted:

Thats why I just follow the ruts. Never lets me down
Almost every time I've done it has been when I was first, second or third to go in the second run haha, so there were basically no ruts to follow. :negative:

I am definitely a rut follower in slalom too. So much easier than actually inspecting.

It's not as embarassing as a friend of mine who went into the men's course right at the beginning of the race (they set men's and women's courses next to each other at the same time, but only run one at a time) and didn't notice until she was 1/3 of the way down haha. Slalom is an amazing event to completely embarrass yourself in.

Ola
Jul 19, 2004

This is a funny story, hope it google translates as well as the translations in the story: https://www.bt.no/100Sport/vintersport/Norsk-OL-trener-tatt-av-sorkoreansk-militarpoliti--Det-var-verdt-det-250805b.html

Norwegian alpine coach was filming the training from the other side of the valley, providing crucial information to Mowinckel about where she was losing time. But unfortunately, the spot she had scoped from google maps turned out to be a military area. She was apprehended, but with some google translation on the phone plus asking very nicely, she was allowed to hang out there. They even sorted her out with blankets and an oven to keep warm. Great PR for all parties, including Google!

African AIDS cum
Feb 29, 2012


Welcome back, welcome back, welcome baaaack
Slalom looks so much more impressive when filmed from behind like this. I wish they could get some kind of setup to shoot races this way, I think they were doing it for FIS races for a while at least because I remember a camera almost hitting a racer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRA-XB0nuyo

Ola
Jul 19, 2004

African AIDS cum posted:

I wish they could get some kind of setup to shoot races this way

They had some excellent drone footage in Madonna di Campiglio in 2015. For a while at least. :v:

PostNouveau
Sep 3, 2011

VY till I die
Grimey Drawer

bawfuls posted:

Every "gate" is really a set of two gates, one the inside gate and the other the outside gate. There is a pair of blue sticks several meters apart and you have to ski between the two of them, then a pair of red sticks and you ski between those two, etc.

The combinations have these pairs set vertically with the fall line instead of horizontally, so instead of inside-outside the gates are more uphill-downhill. How close you want to get to any given gate depends on the relative position of other gates before and after it. So in some cases you want to be right on top of the gate and knock it down with your shins, but in other cases you're aiming no where near it because you're setting up for the next one.
This link is busted.

Here is a very poorly drawn picture. This is a birds-eye view, and the black line illustrates the direction you must go between each pair of gates. You can see why the fastest line often doesn't go close to one half of each pair.



Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Thanks!

African AIDS cum posted:

Slalom looks so much more impressive when filmed from behind like this. I wish they could get some kind of setup to shoot races this way, I think they were doing it for FIS races for a while at least because I remember a camera almost hitting a racer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRA-XB0nuyo

Yeah this is way cooler and more understandable than the front angles. Now that they've got the tech for it, they should really try it out.

Syncopated
Oct 21, 2010
Andre Myhrer :sweden: Total surprise when I woke up and checked the news, thought Hirscher would take it for sure.

wyoak
Feb 14, 2005

a glass case of emotion

Fallen Rib

HookShot posted:

Also I'm super sick and everything sucks but that was a really awesome result for Gisin, I wasn't surprised after Shiffrin had a rather average downhill run and Gisin had a great one.

Even if she'd made it to the finish, I'd have been shocked if Lindsey was going to podium. She really isn't good at slalom anymore (though she trains it more than she pretends to - the entire time she was in NZ at the same time as I was this year she was on the short skis) and would have needed a bigger buffer in the downhill. Canadian Valerie Grenier did amazingly well though, her slalom run was only 1.3 seconds back after a good downhill run, too.

Kristoffersen going out was legit a huge surprise. So was Hirscher, but Kristoffersen has something like 6 DNFs in his entire FIS career. That's so insanely rare, especially for a slalom specialist, where most people have a DNF rate in the 20-50% range. Hirscher is also pretty consistent, but not quite as much. And Kristoffersen has dealt with the pressure and handled it really well in the past. I think on World Cup he has won every single race where he's been the leader after the first run. It was very surprising, but made for an insanely exciting finish.

Tall Swiss Dude just sitting down on the ground when he was a confirmed medal winner was super :3:
How big a deal was the short slalom course? It seemed like less turns would have meant a much better chance for Vonn to podium if she had actually finished, and it probably screwed Shiffrin since she had less turns to make up time, but I don't know how big a difference it was in the end.

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005

wyoak posted:

How big a deal was the short slalom course? It seemed like less turns would have meant a much better chance for Vonn to podium if she had actually finished, and it probably screwed Shiffrin since she had less turns to make up time, but I don't know how big a difference it was in the end.

It wasn't so short that it would have made a difference, 40 seconds is pretty standard as an alpine combined slalom course. I'm pretty sure the one at World Champs was basically the same length. I've actually raced full, regulation FIS-length courses that were shorter than that (38 seconds for the winner by someone with 25 slalom points, so probably 3-5 seconds slower than Holdener would have done it).

Watching how Lindsey was skiing I'm like 95% sure she wouldn't have been in front of Shiffrin at the finish. Probably not even in front of Holdener.

1.3 seconds at the finish line of a world cup slalom run is generally the difference between first and maybe eighth. When Shiffrin is hot it's often the difference between her and third place. But all the same, even if you considered the shorter run, putting up a time that would beat Shiffrin and stay in front of that 1.3 second lead would involve basically having the equivalent of a world cup top 10 result, and Vonn is literally nowhere near that right now. She had bled away her entire lead by the first interval, and she hadn't even gotten to the hardest part of the course yet. Even if she'd finished Vonn wasn't going to be on that podium.

Slalom is seriously a mother fucker of an event. It's actually super hard to get into the rhythm and make those small turns if you're not used to it, and Lindsey hasn't been ranked top 10 in the world in slalom in about eight years. She did spend the entire time she was in NZ this summer at the same time as I was training it, but it absolutely wasn't enough compared to the women who train it week-in, week-out and who race it every week as well.

As for Shiffrin, I don't think a longer course would have helped her, she was skiing super stiffly and if anything the shorter course helped her stop bleeding time. It was definitely the worst slalom skiing I've seen from Shiffrin in a loooooong time.

Proteus Jones
Feb 28, 2013



Shiffrin really, really needs to get that nerve problem under control. It may have been ramped up because Olympics, but it definitely affected her performance in most of her events.

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005

Proteus Jones posted:

Shiffrin really, really needs to get that nerve problem under control. It may have been ramped up because Olympics, but it definitely affected her performance in most of her events.

I think it was more exhaustion than nerves, honestly.

This is her first major event where she's competed in more than just the GS and the slalom. On top of doing those two races, she had to do three full DH training runs (which are loving stressful, much more so than tech races, no matter how good you are) and the combined race, and she had to deal with two races being cancelled (which mentally is entirely as difficult as actually racing on the day) and having the slalom and GS being moved to back-to-back races, so she had to race less than 24 hours after winning Olympic gold.

It's not like she can't perform on the world stage. She got gold in Sochi, going in as the heavy favourite. She's the only woman in the modern era to be World Champ in slalom three times in a row, and she's the reigning silver medalist in the GS at world champs as well. She's performed every single time on the big stage, the only difference being this was her first experience of doing it with the full schedule, and I think that impacted her performance more than nerves. I might be wrong, but I doubt it.

Kazak_Hstan
Apr 28, 2014

Grimey Drawer
She’s 22 with two golds and a silver in the olympics. She clearly needs to figure her life out.

bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

Proteus Jones posted:

Shiffrin really, really needs to get that nerve problem under control. It may have been ramped up because Olympics, but it definitely affected her performance in most of her events.
Yes this is the resume of a 22 year old who just can't handle pressure



And she is of course likely to win two more crystal globes this year, slalom and overall.

bawfuls fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Feb 23, 2018

ironlung
Dec 31, 2001

Proteus Jones posted:

Shiffrin really, really needs to get that nerve problem under control. It may have been ramped up because Olympics, but it definitely affected her performance in most of her events.

LOL so you have been following ski racing for about 10 days?

ironlung fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Feb 23, 2018

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005
Team event is tonight at 9pm EST

This is the newest event in the Olympics because it's ~*~spectator friendly~*~ in a sport that's bleeding viewers. Personally I think it's kind of dumb, but it's also my country's best chance at a medal because for some inexplicable reason we're really good at it (that reason is probably that they practice a lot, but I assume so do other countries).

Basically, every country has four people that will race head to head, two men and two women. At the end, whoever has the fastest combined time moves on. At least, I'm assuming that's how it works. I've legit never actually watched a team event in full because it honestly bores me, and I've never raced an official one because there's like no way to assign FIS points to them.

Anyway go Canada.

Here's the list of the brackets:

AUT
KOR (lol those poor Koreans)

SWE
SLO

USA
GBR

NOR
OAR

ITA
CZE

FRA
CAN

GER
SVK

SUI
HUN


If you're looking for favourites, the answer is who the gently caress knows. This is an event that literally only gets raced at world champs and maybe world cup finals? So like once or twice a year, tops. Austria, France, Switzerland are all good bets. Canada is a dark horse. A good chunk of the former alpine team just won medals in ski cross so they'll be amped up by that too. America will probably suck for those of you hoping for another team USA medal, but at least their first round is against team GB who I honestly didn't realize had four athletes at these games sooooo.

HookShot fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Feb 23, 2018

African AIDS cum
Feb 29, 2012


Welcome back, welcome back, welcome baaaack
Somehow people always get devastating injuries in the team event, lets hope there aren't any this time

bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

Is the team event GS or?

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005

bawfuls posted:

Is the team event GS or?

I THINK it's glalom, so like probably 16-18 meters between gates (for those who are unaware there are around 10-12 meters between slalom gates and 22-24 between GS gates).

It's definitely not a dual GS, if it's not glalom it's dual slalom.



edit: Nope, the internet tells me it's dual slalom, 10 meters between gates. More potential for carnage.

Ola
Jul 19, 2004

Swedes own at this, Myhrer in particular.

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005
I dug up the results from the last 5 times this event has been run:

2017 WCF:
Sweden
Germany
France

2017 WC:
France
Slovakia
Sweden

2016 WCF:
Switzerland
Germany
Sweden

2015 WCF:
Switzerland
Sweden
Austria

2015 WC:
Austria
Canada
Sweden

So yeah, five results and you're going back three years. The Swedes are favourites for sure, but they are going to be significantly less consistently good at this as everyone else figures out how to double hand the gates out of the way, which is teh method the Swedish dudes use that's so efficient, which they have definitely been doing more and more on WC in the city events.

bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

This is a weird rear end event

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005

bawfuls posted:

This is a weird rear end event

What do you mean you don’t want to watch ski racing for like four hours and 100 different runs through the same 20 gates?

bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

Why the hell would they use panel gates for what is obviously a slalom?

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005

bawfuls posted:

Why the hell would they use panel gates for what is obviously a slalom?

It’s easier for newcomers to the sport to understand, I guess.

bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

This is like some kind of weird beer-league NASTAR event, but dumber because they made real ski racers do it in a desperate bid for an Olympic medal.

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005
Yeah, you’re not going to find any argument here.

Kazak_Hstan
Apr 28, 2014

Grimey Drawer
This is so dumb its fun.

Reprisal
Jul 20, 2001
punching the gates down looks idiotic.

bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

Reprisal posted:

punching the gates down looks idiotic.
It's an idiotic move necessitated by the fact that they are using the wrong gates for this event.

Rated PG-34
Jul 1, 2004




so it's wins with time as the tie breaker?

HookShot
Dec 26, 2005

Rated PG-34 posted:

so it's wins with time as the tie breaker?

Yup.

Kazak_Hstan
Apr 28, 2014

Grimey Drawer
With a course this short it seems like variation between red and blue is a huge factor.

Rated PG-34
Jul 1, 2004




that seems p dum

Kazak_Hstan
Apr 28, 2014

Grimey Drawer
Like to the point that if you can win a point on this blue course your team is going to win.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

bawfuls
Oct 28, 2009

Kazak_Hstan posted:

With a course this short it seems like variation between red and blue is a huge factor.
Each matchup has one male and one female racer run on each side so it ought to even out in the end

  • Locked thread