 Poster: A snowHead
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US racers Bode Miller and Daron Rahlves stormed to a 1-2 victory in the Beaver Creek downhill today on skis prepared by the serviceman who previously worked for Austrian Stephan Eberharter, the 2003 overall World Cup champion. This is described by US journal Ski Racing as "the greatest single speed performance in the history of the U.S. Ski Team."
Hermann Maier re-injured his knee during the race and was examined by doctors...
Two reports: Patrick Lang for Reuters...Nathaniel Vinton for Ski Racing.
Results on www.snowracers.net
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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No point me setting the video for tomorrow's skiing on 4, then, since I already know the result...
David, please don't put the result in the title. I deliberartly avoid news sites so I can watch the programme and still have the excitement of not knowing who finished where, or who didn;t finish at all etc
A nice non descriptive title like "Beaver creek downhill results" measn I can choose not to look in the thread until I realise I've forgotten to set the video - again!.
Please?
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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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I think we might need to take a poll on this, nbt. Conventionally, the news waits for no one. We're here to report news, comment and information to stimulate discussion.
I'll bring it up with fellow moderators too. Obviously it's no wish of mine to upset anyone - does anyone else have any preferences on this?
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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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Maybe we already have the answers. The sister forum snowRacers carries the results as usual and we don't declare them in the topic titles here but do report them in the threads for those who are interested and don't have C4. But a quick poll would do no harm...
Here's a bit of added value. An interesting article on Bode's approach to life, the universe and skiing from the Sunday Times
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Miller has a rare ability to analyse his skiing with impartiality. “Technically, I am worse than the others on the team, but I can still go fast. I am not as strong as half these guys, but I do have amazing feeling for my feet. My balance, my feeling through the snow, is my strength. If you take your strengths and exploit those and try to eliminate as many of your weaknesses as you can you are going to reach your peak performance.”
That has simply meant taking more risks. Miller crashes more than anybody else. “My technical skills are never going to win me races, but my ability to pull off a recovery better than anyone else allows me to take more risks in the first place. If I’m not abusing that side of my strength then I’m just giving it away. |
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| “I’m 27, I’ve made a ton of mistakes, I’m really good at making recoveries, but I am also much much better at anticipating where I’m going to make mistakes before they start to happen. And I’m doing that without backing off on the intensity. I’m still skiing with higher intensity than anyone else on the course so that’s how come I am able to win by larger margins. |
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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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I'm with nbt on this. Put the title as Men's Downhill results from Beaver Creek. That way everyone's happy 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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This for me is a snow forum, not a news site. If I log on at the weekend, I avoid the ski club site, Channel 4, the BBC sports sections etc. then I see the result here:(
as it happens the video threw a fit and decided that the date I'd chosen was next monh so I didn;t record it after all 
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nbt, obviously it would be interesting to hear from as many race followers as possible on this. I'm concerned that if something really major happened (and the Miller-Rahlves result was pretty stunning) - let's suppose Alain Baxter wins a World Cup slalom - are you saying that we shouldn't run a headline of that nature?
The character of snowHeads has, in fact, evolved to run news as the front page feature, following admin's modifications. News is one way that snowHeads can draw new blood to the site, as we discovered with the Tignes cablecar scoop, so I hope you enjoy that as aspect of snowHeads' ability to 'report from the scene' - it was all thanks to ise being there, and PG being up for transmitting the news to the site.
But, as I say, the news stories are not there to annoy people who want surprises when watching Channel 4 / Ski Sunday etc., so we need to resolve this in a democratic way.
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I think the problem is that I use the "how posts since last visits" view. Since the news section is in essence simlpy another section of the forum, any "news" posts show up - including the title
I'm sure this isn't a new phenomenon - I remember an eposide of the Likely Lads with a simila theme - but I'm still leaning towards preferring a headline that allows me to choose whether to read a thread. I think race results are kind of borderline, whereas the tignes cable car incident, for instance, is something that really does deserve a thread with a descriptive title becasue to be quite frank, you won;t fnd an hour long programme devoted to it on Sunday morning....
As for this specific incident - Miller & Rahlves isn'r particularly stunning for me, since I (as a spectator rather than an avid follower or ski racing) consider both to be pretty good. Herman's knee is something worth reporting, but hardly ground breaking enough to merit immediate coverage? As I said, I haven;t seen the C4 coverage, so I hope the Monday night / Tuesday morning episode contains some footage to make up for it
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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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I have to say that I don't see this as a news website, more as a forum for discussing skiing issues, with free access, after all that's what it was set up for. I find the news an interesting diversion, but mainly I come here for the discussion. I have to say that althought I'm not that bothered about finding out the results of races early, I do agree with nbt's suggestion that the results not be given away in the thread title.
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I sympathise with nbt's and other's suggestions, but have to say that DG's assertion that having up to date snowsports news is a good way to attract interested new members is a good selling point. If we want snowheads to grow and attract more investment and interest from other areas, then it seems to make good sense.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Can I vote against 'spoiler' headlines too 
It takes a bit more effort to come up with a headline but in these days of timeshifting 'minority' sports I don't think it's very user-friendly to put the results on the front-page headlines - and, indeed, as nbt (cool name btw) says, 'new threads' and such also bring up news - so it's hard to avoid.
I'd certainly suggest trying to make them the exception rather than the rule.
David Goldsmith, Balance it - how about "Major Upset in World Cup Slalom Results" ??
In any case, like newspapers - headlines need to tease you into clicking through...
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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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OK, let me further explore the hypothetical case above. When Alain Baxter won (albeit temporarily) the bronze slalom at the last Winter Olympics what headline would I have written to satisfy news-hungry snowHeads, without annoying those who wanted to watch it later?
Didn't all new organisations report Baxter's achievement as headline news as a matter of urgency?
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Great British skiing!!
Full details in our sports section! Just click on the headline for the latest Olympic stories over on snowRacers!
Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much  on Mon 6-12-04 18:51; edited 1 time in total
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You know it makes sense.
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Surely in high profile events like Olympic races there is no need to put results into the subject line to attract news-hungry snowheads? For those people who want their news as soon as possible it is only one click away, but for those who like to recreate the drama by watching it on 'live TV' (albeit time-shifted) they can avoid those threads. I think the same applies to World Cup events - no need for the result in the subject line, giving snowheads the choice to read or not.
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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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I think rob@rar.org.uk has it. IN the case of racing, you either have sky and watch it live (in whgich case you know the results already), or those of use with council telly have to wait for it to come on terrestrial TV. In the case of a high profile event lIke Baxter's win (and a win it was, in my book), well, I was watching live, because it was on BBC and I was able to do so. Since I dionlt have sky, I have to rely on Channel 4's coverage, which is a day or two behind schedule.,
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Poster: A snowHead
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I'm definitely against posting results in the post title, I've said it before.
Its spoilt my enjoyment of watching the races tomorrow as well.
I would argue the results are only really interesting to Race followers anyway, so why take the chance of spoiling it for someone?
Leave the news to the BBC.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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PS nbt. I'm pretty sure the races are being shown at around 4am tomorrow morning in the regular 2 hour round up program.
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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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markP, I hope the video's worked this time, I set it last night but then again I set it on saturday night and it didn't tape sunday's programme either
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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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Thanks for the continuing comments, which are of great interest. First of all, I'm genuinely sorry if the headlining of last weekend's Beaver Creek results spoilt anyone's fun on watching the TV coverage.
As PG has commented there are also issues of the inter-relationship of snowHeads and snowRacers which are important to the individual strengths and symbiosis of the two sites, so these will be discussed.
Any further comments on ski racing coverage are really welcome. As UK-based sites, with the fascinating historical background of Sir Arnold Lunn and his colleagues inventing alpine skiing in the first half of the 20th century, we have the opportunity to do something distinctive and significant. Britain may view itself as semi-successful in competitive skiing, but it's easy to forget that we've fostered two world champions - Graham Wilkie (world ski speed record-maker, 1987) and Vaila Macdonald (world extreme ski champion, 1994 (? date unchecked) - in the past 20 years, plus the huge achievements of Alain Baxter, Konrad Bartelski, Martin Bell, Lesley McKenna and others.
Not bad for an island nation.
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FAQ
