 Poster: A snowHead
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Anyone watch the mens combined today?
I've just watched the slalom bit of it....I couldn't believe how many of the first few down skied out. But a good result for the Swiss, especially Albrecht, who's never even got a podium in a WC race.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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maggi, I forgot it was on  but managed to get home for the repeat showing of the slalom.
Have set sky to record tomorrow's races!!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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easiski, The 165 cm is the minimum length requirement for all of the male categories for slalom from age 16 upwards and 155 cm for ladies.
The problem really occurs for the shorter children when they get to 16 and become 'Junior 1' and have to use these lengths.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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gsb, Yes, but they all tend to use that length and Michael Walchofer appeared to be skiing on snowblades didn't he???? What about "little" people, or aren't they allowed to do international comps these day? % of peeps' height would be much fairer.
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easiski,
Absolutely, us shorties are excluded from most elite sports. Just look at basketball: the world's most boring sport unless you're about 7'4".
Why don't they have "height leagues" in the same way they have weight divisions in boxing. I'd pay good money to watch two teams of 5'6" basketballers play: my guess is that the skill levels would be a lot higher than those on display in the NBA.
(off topic rant over)
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easiski, I'm sure you know that 'little' people can compete in FIS comps. It must be fair to say that they are put at a competitive disadvantage and also in a position more likely to cause injury. A couple of years ago there was talk about changing the ski length rules for Junior 1, to be height related. (Of course no help for short adults) AFAIK nothing has changed yet. My daughter has only ever skied in a few snow races (non fis), because at only 150cm tall and petite she would have to race on 155 sl and 175 gs. And the real joke 195 sg
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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gsb, Silly and unfair. I'm 165 and ski the Fischer WC SCs which are mor than enough for me!
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easiski, no it's not. As you should know better than me, it's all about turning radius. The minimum length rule was brought in, along with the minimum width underfoot, as a safety measure. Prior to this (I am told) men were on skis as short as 155, were making way too tight turns at way too high a speed for their knees to support and there were a load of ACL ruptures. These rules have forced them to go slower, as they can carve a much smaller part of the course. I'm sort of surpised that there's not actually a minimum sidecut rule for slalom (as there is for GS, SG and DH), but I'm told it sort of follows as a consequence of the other two rules and ski construction capabilities.
If you want shorter people to have shorter skis, then you'll have to have courses with tighter gates. Totally impractical.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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GrahamN, If tyhe regulation ski length was experessed as a % of the skier's height that would be much fairer. Walchofer or peeps his size on 165 have first, and advantage because they don't have to work so hard to bend the ski. They do have a disadvantage though as he demonstrated very well last weekend. Ballet skis used to be regulated like this. an adult racer is unlikely to grow, and as they can measure everything else, why not the height of the skier and the length of the ski? 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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easiski, if your argument is about how easy it is to bend the ski, then surely length should be related to skiers weight rather than height, as that, not height, is what limits the amount of force that can be applied - and would we then have people running around before the start to make the weight for their ski (like boxers or jockeys)? A more sensible solution though would be to just make the ski softer - AIUI a ski is made stiff purely to transmit the force applied at the binding point along its length, and the more force being applied the stiffer the ski needs to be, so the lighter skier actually only needs a less stiff ski. There're no regs on how stiff a ski should be, so that's purely a matter of the skier's choice.
But surely the basic point remains though that the important parameter of the ski is how tightly it turns - i.e. the basic sidecut radius (along with the ability to bend it to keep it carving at high edge angles). As skis are currently made, essentially the shorter the ski the tighter the radius, so it's actually someone with a shorter ski who is at an unfair advantage when (as in slalom and to a lesser extent GS) the limiting parameter is how tight the gates are. Whether someone is 1.2m or 1.9m tall doesn't change the drop or offset between gates, so to be fair the skis need to have the same dimension. I don't have any figures to hand but, as I said above, I'm fairly sure that slalom speeds are slower now that the skis have a minimum length than they were immediately before the rule change.
One alternative if you insist on making the length restriction proportional would be to actually stipulate the sidecut radius for SL skis. The shorter skis would then have to have a narrower tip for the same underfoot dimension, but it would still mean that the ski carved the same radius. I'm not sure whether the shorter ski would behave proportionally though when put at a high edge angle (I'd need to think a bit more deeply about the geometry there), and I've got a feeling that there would be a definite advantage to being short when the ski was being steered or twisted tighter than the carving radius.
Ballet is/was a completely different phenomenon (it may be skiing, but not as we know it, Jim) - where flexibility and contortionism is of the essence, so it's quite logical (Jim) that any rules there were relative to the skier's height.
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GrahamN, Well, I agree you have a point about the radius, but for instance, I can ski the top publicly available slalom skis quite happily at 155, but am really struggling to turn them at all at 165. I am " overskied". Thus, at my level of skiing (well below WC) I can bend a ski 10cms shorter than me, but not one my size if it's a slightly detuned race ski. gsb's daughter is expected to ski a race ski that is 5 cms longer than her. A softer ski will not grip so well on the hard race pistes so this is not the answer. Effectively she is being denied the chance to race simply because she's small and light.
Since the radius mentioned is the natural turning radius of the ski, then we all apply more pressure to make it turn in a shorter radius, the more powerful the skier the more they can bend it. I agree that weight would probably be a better guide, but that would be impractical since weight can fluctuate. Height might be rule of thumb, but would be fairer than a minimum length which excludes shorties from a sport which doesn't automatically set them at a disadvantage like, say, tennis or football. (note how many times Michael whats-his-name's been injured).
My skis turn in 11m - that's a turn of 22m - a cricket pitch - natch I don't make such huge turns down the hill!
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You know it makes sense.
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easiski, There are one quite a few very small girls on the circuit, Nicole Gius, Denise Karbon etc, I don't think that length is an important factor for them
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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LARGEZOOKEEPER, they're not that small though are they? they're around my size (as I understood it) which is actually average for a woman. The point is about either the really little peeps like gsb's daughter. 150 is around 5'. A tiddler - but there are still plenty of them out there. What about a guy who's only 5'6"? the other day Nick referred to one of the smallest guys on the circuit as being only about 5'10" 
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Poster: A snowHead
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| easiski wrote: |
| A softer ski will not grip so well on the hard race pistes so this is not the answer. |
But being lighter you don't need to grip so hard to provide the forces to get you round the corner. If going the same speed Walchofer probably needs twice the grip you do, so you're actually at an unfair advantage over him  on an icy piste. Not entirely sure though what the precise relationship is though between stiffness, weight and limiting sideways force - the one thing for sure is that if you're twice the weight you need twice the sideways force to make the same turn.
In the speed disciplines though the advantage is with the heavier skier - forces down the hill and friction are all proportional to weight, so no gain/loss, but air resistance is proportional to somewhere between height and frontal area, which scales up either as the cube root or cube root squared of weight - so if you double your weight you will only experience somewhere between 63% and 80% of the air resistance relative to your weight (i.e. accelerating force).
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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FAQ
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