stewart woodward, the contribution BASI make means SSGB in turn help with the development of the coaching qualification doesn't it? So a two way thing. Although quite right BASI contribute, it's a profitable organistation.
Do you think any of these current problems would have been lessened if modernistation had happened?
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Ski cross anybody? Great Britain's World Cup team has five athletes ranked in the top 100 in the world: 39th (Sarsfield), 51st (Sauvey), 53rd (Morison), 75th (Samuels) and 77th (Robinson).
In response to the comment about ski cross the GB guys are doing so well.... with no funding! I saw Emily Sarsfield out at a World Cup in Canada, as she was about to go into the top 16 but unfortunately had a nasty crash! It's great to watch - so unpredictable. She's so gutsy she's got the ability to be amongst the top girls, and was last season till she got injured, she could do well at the Olympics next year! Definitely one to watch!
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?
Not going to knock the Skiercross guys in any shape or form as we do have 5 ranked in the top 100 in the World.
However the Alpine team are doing just as well if not better in comparison.
What you also have got to look at is how many people are on the World ranking lists in each sport.
Skiercross has just under 500 males and around 300 females with 5 Brits in the top 100 - 3 males and 2 females. - So 5 in the top 20%
Alpine has almost 9000 males and around 5000 females on the lists with 4 Brits in the top 110 - 3 males & 1 Female. There is also another 5 males & 2 females ranked in the top 250. - So thats 11 in total in the top 3%!
Let's not keep knocking the Alpine guys, they have just as much chance of success at the vancouver games as any of the other Skiers/snowbaorders, whatever type/style etc they do.
Back them all. They all work amazingly hard to get to where they are!
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Plugboy, whilst that's a good point well made, it also underlines how much harder it is to win a medal in alpine than freestyle (and specifically, ski cross). Ultimately, to get a medal, the ski cross athletes in the top 100 have to surpass just as many athletes to become world number 1 as the alpiner racers do in an equivalent position. If anything, it suggests that pumping money into alpine skiing will yield worse results than in freestyle, as the sport is better established and the competition greater, as you rightly point out.
Perhaps more interesting is the following:
Val D'Isere Alpine Ski World Champs this year.
Ed Drake, GB's 22-year-old starlet, records 27th place in the Downhill out of 38 starters. The winner is John Kucera, in a time of 2.07.01. Ed finishes in 2.14.47. He is 7.46s off World Championship pace; that's 5.87% slower than he needs to be.
In the SuperG, Ed finishes 29th our of 70 starters. The winner is Didier Cuche, in a time of 1.19.41. Ed finishes in 1.24.15. He is 4.74s off World Championship pace; that's 6.33% slower than he needs to be.
In contrast, on the other side of the globe at the Freestyle Ski World Champs in Inawashiro, Japan, GB's 21-year-old starlet Craig Robinson finishes 36th out of 52 starters in the ski cross event. The winner is Mario's brother, Andy Matt, in a time of 46.99. Craig finishes in 49.18. He is 2.19s off World Championship pace; that's just 4.66% slower than he needs to be.
Points of interest: ski cross is a knockout event for the top 32, and these timings are drawn from qualification only. However, time and time again world cup results show that it is only the fastest men in qualification that win races. Andy Matt was the fastest in qualification in Inawashiro, and he also won gold.
Second point of interest: Ed Drake is GB's number 1 alpine skier. Craig Robinson is GB's number 3 ski cross skier. Britain's number 1, Angus Morison, skied a tough race and ended up in 39th in a time of 49.36 (still only 5.04% slower). #2 Gregg Samuels is 46th with 51.04 (8.61% off).
Third point of interest: Ed's placing is the result of SSGB's World Cup programme, funded partly by UK Sport to the tune of £372,000 for the Vancouver Olympiad. SSGB also support Ed with income from SSGB private sponsors, and Scottish Institute of Sport funding. Resources have been spent heavily on conditioning, southern hemisphere training, coaching staff, etc.
Angus and Craig receive no funding through SSGB. There is not even a programme in place that they can pay into so that they can get support. Neither have a coach of any description.
Interesting to note - Craig Robinson and Greg Samuels both skied in the SSGB Alpine programme prior to switching to Skier X !! So its not like they have never been funded in any way - just the programme they choose to ski in right now. It certainly does seem like its easier to do well in certain events. Agree with Plugboy though - they all need support.
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In Nordic Andrew Musgrave's best result in a world cup event last season was ( I think) 6.8% behind the winner in one of the Tour de ski races (a distance race) . In the sprint races at the world cups his best position was 6.53% behind the winner.
At the Nordic World Champs his best result was 45th in the 30km double pursuit finishing just 5.5% behind the winner. Again without the (in comparison) massive funding of the alpine teams.
In fact the nordic teams performance last season seems to have had a higher impact with the likes of FIS and the main nordic teams than it has with SSGB.
After all it is free
After all it is free
So can we conclude, then, that unfunded Craig Robinson - who works night shifts in a factory in Portsmouth each summer to keep himself on snow - is the only British male in timed events to be within 5% of gold medal pace?
Fred, it should be noted that at development team and home nations level - the levels at which Robinson and Samuels competed for GB in alpine - athletes are not really subsidised at all and instead pay huge sums to be part of the setup. In many cases it is the unsustainability of meeting these large programme costs (and the inability to progress to a higher level where more costs are subsidised) that causes athletes to leave the setup and either retire or switch disciplines.
At WC level (like Drake in alpine) the contribution to be part of the programme is very little in comparison, because the athletes are at the highest level and have earned their way to this level. Robinson and Samuels in ski cross race at the same level as Drake, and have fought their way to the top, but SSGB currently provides no option for them to pay into a programme, subsidised or not. There is no support system available, even if they wanted to pay for it completely by themselves. In this sense, there is no support whatsoever, and the WC ski cross programme is therefore in a worse state than junior and FIS entry level alpine programmes.
All this, despite better pound-for-pound performances from British ski cross athletes than their alpine counterparts at their respective World Championships in 2009.
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welove2ski,
Set up your own program for the skier cross skiers then. Thats basically what nordic did. SSGB weren't particularly interested in nordic, there was little or no funding and there was no progression from junior skiing on to world cup level. Those involved in nordic skiing at the junior level basically put a proposal together for a joined up program for nordic skiing and put it to SSGB via the nordic committee.
I expect even better results this year - bearing in mind that our oldest skier qualified to race at world cup level is only 19 which is very young to be performing well at an endurance event there is still a lot of improvement to come.
When we said at the time that we were aiming for 1 skier to qualify to go to the Vancouver olympics (we should actually have 3) and for a decent sized team for Sochi we were practically laughed at - as at the time we had no one near the selection criteria. But by puting a program in place and with lots of hard work from the athletes, coaches etc. we are well ahead of our expected timelines.
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OK welove2ski (Sean? Peter?), this is sad to see, but when resources are scarce, I suppose it is natural for people to start bitter infighting over the shares of the decreasing pie. I must admit, back in my day, we had our own disputes over funding levels between speed event and technical event skiers. It is always difficult to find empirical formulae to try to mathematically compare performances between disciplines or events. And there are always other factors: tradition, exposure, mass participation.
It does seem to be the case that it is easier, in the short-term, to be successful in "brand-new" Olympic events. Then, as more nations start to take them seriously, it gets tougher. This seemed to be the case with short-track speed-skating, and it will probably happen with skiercross. Olympic exposure will increase participation which will raise the standards.
Skiercross has been slow to gain exposure in the traditional Alpine nations, perhaps because FIS bizarrely shunted it into "freestyle" when it seems to be more akin to Alpine racing. (Or perhaps the cause and effect of that previous sentence could equally be reversed.)
Additionally, some Skiercross competitors seem to have been more concerned with what they are wearing, rather than how fast they are going, which has not done much for their credibility as bona fide athletes. And it didn't help when an ancient ex-downhiller turned up and won the British Skiercross Championships four years ago
It may be fairer to draw comparisons between alpine and skiercross in a decade or so, when the event has truly established itself.
The guy I pity is poor Dougie Crawford - why has no-one mentioned his excellent result on the Face de Bellevarde? He was much closer to Kucera than Ed was.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Hi Martin!
It's actually Max in this particular case. We can't all be everywhere at once! I wrote the original article (start of this thread) on SSGB's problems, and it's evolved into a ski cross discussion, which I'm rather invested in as well...
Dougie was rapid in the DH in Val, fair play to him and you for pointing it out. I'm not out to knock alpine here - this could be a huge season for GB, everything is in place, yes there were some setbacks a couple of months ago, but a couple of hot results for Ed, Dougie, Dave and of course Chemmy, and all will be forgotten. It's all about momentum imo, and if the team can get some before February then the Olympics is the place for underdogs to shine.
That said, it is very sad about ski cross. Thankfully, there is starting to be some talk about something getting sorted within GB, and of course it doesn't help when athletes complain and expect things to get better by itself. All I was trying to show is that with no budget or infrastructure, British results in ski cross are at least as good as their alpine equivalent, which supports the argument that small nations should plough resources into undeveloped sports in order to dominate them. Focussing extremely limited resources on trying to win an alpine gold medal is (as someone else on Snowheads said not so long ago) the same as British Cycling trying to produce a Tour de France winner a few years ago. Instead, they focussed on track cycling at the expense of everything else, dominated it, and are now in the position to launch a GB Sky team for the Tour next year. It's a tried and tested formula for any nation trying to establish themselves in a sport, and why it hasn't been built into the SSGB modus operandi in years gone by is beyond me.
The argument about clothing is a ridiculous one, but one caused by FIS, who seem intent on containing the sport's success (they weren't even able get a tour sponsor for the WC last season, and they constantly fiddle the rules without consultation with athletes or coaches). FIS essentially changed the rules for '08 by making a loophole that allowed for two piece catsuits, which is completely against the ethos of a sport born out of alpine backlash. General discontent has followed. Athletes will do what they have to do to be competitive, but they will complain about it. It's a silly situation that hasn't really been rectified for 09/10.
As far as the Brits are concerned, I'm just sorry none of our lot were established when members of your family competed! Apart from Angus and Emily, who have turned up the last couple of years (both were injured this year), 2009 was the first year with an established field of 5 FIS athletes in the senior men's competition, with 1st year FIS Martin Trotter also competing in the junior category. That said, the course was not a ski cross. The difference between the Brits and, say, the St Johann WC stage this year, is simply astonishing. And that's before we start talking X Games which was quite flat by its own crazy standards this year (just look at the size of that last kicker though!). The World Champs course in Japan this year had a booter on it that was reportedly "bigger than anything I've ever done, Hahnenkamm or elsewhere" (you know it's crazy when Daaron Rahlves is talking like that).
What I'm trying to say is that as the sport develops, the British Champs will probably have to move to Meribel with the alpine skiers. At the moment they put on a go kart track for a Formula 1 race, which is silly - the sport is essentially a 6th alpine discipline.
Last edited by snowHeads are a friendly bunch. on Tue 8-09-09 13:18; edited 2 times in total
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.
welove2ski, By your argument we should be putting all our funding into female ski jumping, ski cross sounds far too popular.
There was a ski cross event at the English Alpine Champs last season, I don't have a feel for how well it went as I had left the resort after the GS.
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
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
rjs, you may laugh, but that's exactly what I would do. At this stage, a bit of low key development - you don't want to go whole hog until it's confirmed for 2014 (no doubt it will be). Soon as it's confirmed, talent ID as many girls from other sports as possible (trampolining, alpine DH, whatever) and go for it. It's a much better opportunity for medals than ski cross, although my counter-argument would be that ski cross has untapped marketing potential that could benefit the whole of SSGB very quickly.
I was actually involved with the shaping and running of the ski cross at the English this year since I was out injured, and we think it went very well. We adapted the course to have minimal big hits to make it accessible to the tech skiers who aren't fans of airtime, and that seemed to go down well. It was a decent level FIS-race course, I'd say - much better than the offering at the Brits.
A bonus for the England team was that Ed Cozzi took gold (he has no alpine experience and was discovered in a jump park in Tignes 18 months ago), which showed that ski cross requires more than just alpine skills. Although it would only have been silver if it wasn't for Brad Morgan's comical timing, just metres from the finish line (sorry Brad )!
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Hi Max! It seems like yesterday that we were training in Zermatt together - actually it was 11 or 12 years ago - how the years fly by!
"Born out of alpine backlash" - that is a strange phrase. Eventually, hopefully, when skiercross matures as an event, it will have the confidence to stand alone without reference to alpine skiing. You could say that the same process happened with snowboarders through the 80s and 90s. Getting over the "baggy image" thing would be a big step forward in that respect.
I am actually surprised that things have not developed to the point where skiers are competing in alpine and skiercross events in equal amounts during a given season. The similarities seem far greater than the differences. What are the Camel bumps, if not a "gap jump"? The fact that Daron has fitted in so quickly is evidence of this. The FIS designation of skiercross as "freestyle" may be deterring alpine racers from entering skiercross events - which is perhaps what FIS intended in the first place.
Course design is of course a huge factor for skiercross; there have to be passing opportunities - it is boring if the race is always decided by the first corner. And I agree that you need a blend of turning and jumping skills.
The "event targeting" argument is a good one - it certainly worked in aerials for the Aussies, and to a certain extent for us in the 90s with Raz Cobbing. But sports administrators will always be leery of putting all their eggs in one basket.
Anyway, good luck with the funding and good luck this season. I am definitely excited about skiercross in the Olympics - and mindful that boardercross gave us one of the defining moments of drama of the 2006 Games, with Jacobellis' antics!
Last edited by You know it makes sense. on Tue 8-09-09 14:04; edited 1 time in total
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
welove2ski, I wasn't making a joke, I do think that we need to decide though whether the sports that we fund ought to have some base within the general public. Track cycling is fairly specialized but most people have ridden a bike and can think that they understand what they are watching on TV.
I suppose ski cross does quite well on this measure, skiing too close to people and knocking them over seems to be a part of lots of people's ski holidays.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Martin, blimey, it was a while ago eh! I remember it well! I think I've got the daily telegraph feature framed somewhere round here...
Completely agree about ski cross standing alone; the problem is that it has to follow either the freestyle or alpine tour because resorts put on multiple events at once. At the moment we have problems with TD's not understanding enough about alpine, but the same could work in reverse if it was on the alpine tour, and alpine is having an increased influence at the moment (courses are becoming increasingly steeper, turnier, and with fewer features. This year saw the first time that a WC course was injected. This is just as bad as guys turning up on twin tips in the old days). So course design is more critical than ever, I agree. If we let alpine skiers take over then it will just become half a super g with the occasional roller.
Are you saying that by getting over the 'baggy image' (funny story actually - I got some stern words in Laax this year by the organisers for wearing my race pants), we ought to just be wearing catsuits? Because I think part of the appeal is the accessibility. Watching guys in speed suits is so divorced from what people do on holiday (as rjs points out quite rightly), that it can become alienating. Ski cross must hold onto its roots in this sense and stay away from lycra IMO. There's a middle ground.
I can understand why SSGB won't put all their eggs in one basket as you say. We have a long and proud tradition of alpine racing in the UK. But at the same time, if you want to make significant gains you have to take risks. Snoasis will be a huge step I think (if it ever gets off the ground!), but it needs more than that - you need innovation.
I'm just writing a feature for WL2S about ski cross and the games, which is why I had it on my mind and came on here. So stay tuned, I'll post the link when it's up.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
welove2ski wrote:
Are you saying that by getting over the 'baggy image' (funny story actually - I got some stern words in Laax this year by the organisers for wearing my race pants), we ought to just be wearing catsuits? Because I think part of the appeal is the accessibility. Watching guys in speed suits is so divorced from what people do on holiday (as rjs points out quite rightly), that it can become alienating. Ski cross must hold onto its roots in this sense and stay away from lycra IMO. There's a middle ground.
I guess I'm saying that surely if you are serious athletes, you just wear whatever is fastest and don't really care about "appeal", "accessibility" or your "roots". If alpine racing had worried about "holding on to its roots", we would all still be wearing Arnold Lunn's tweed plusfours. Instead, a big part of alpine racing's success has been as a force for innovation.
It does seem slightly odd to have a "fashion clause" written into the rules of any sport. The only other one I can think of is beach volleyball - mind you, that one does OK for "appeal"....
Anyway, look forward to reading your article on the website!
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?
Hand out baggy race suits* for people to wear so that in each race you have one green, one blue, one red and one black. Fair to all, problem solved.
Beequin, the old Jeep King of the Mountain series did exactly that with motocross-style shirts, and the X Games continues to do so with its multicoloured aprons. But maybe pants as well would be a good idea!
Martin, it's nothing to do with fashion - a huge number of sports have carefully-placed rules to prevent them becoming too equipment-orientated.
Just look at the state of professional swimming. Speed suits are a performance-related issue, not a fashion issue. The more scope you allow for the use of high tech equipment that isn't used by the general public, the more alienated your fan base becomes. Much more importantly, it panders to the established teams/nations with higher budgets, and makes the sport less competitive. This is exactly the reason why Formula 1 lost a lot of popularity (before Brits started dominating), and why A1 was born. Because it stopped being a competition.
In exactly the same way, the change in regulations within ski cross meant that last year the French team, with its large budget, spent resources during the summer on developing a tailored two-piece speed suit for its athletes. They then turned up to the season opening EC in Grasgehren in Germany and completely blindsided everyone else. Olivier Fabre won the race by a staggering 1.15 seconds over a 55-second course despite being the 14th best skier on points coming into the race. The youngster Sylvian Miallier also made the podium, and Timothee Theaux, with only one ski cross race of previous experience (admittedly he has skied to 25 points in SL) made the top 10.
Austria, Czech, the US and Canada then developed their own suits in time for the first World Cup so that they could compete with the French, and everyone else (like us!) has been left out in the cold. The Finns tested the suits mid-season as part of a protest bid, and found that they are worth an average of around 0.8 seconds over a minute. That's absolutely absurd, isn't it?
All of this means that if you can't get a tailored two-piece lycra number that has exactly 5cm of bagginess around the body, you're losing out before the race has started. Which is why there's so much infighting in ski cross at the moment - personally, I think it's quite understandable. They either need to allow full-on catsuits (conventional wisdom has always been that this would be too dangerous - it certainly doesn't need to get any faster, and with people sliding off each other if they make contact, it could get nasty. And then there's the anti-catsuit marketability argument; whether you agree with it or not), or they need to ban body-hugging stretchable material altogether.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Interesting reading about peoples thoughts on Ski Cross. The clothing issue is one that seems to have provoked various reactions amongst the athletes. As Ski Cross evolved it was only a matter of time before it became more closely related to alpine racing, it is a race afterall. It has only really been in the last 2/3 seasons that national ski cross teams have formed and inevitably the bigger nations will throw more money at it as it now provides another chance of an Olympic medal.
With an Olympic Medal at stake teams are clearly going to look for every competitive advantage that they can, nothing wrong with this but part of the success of Ski Cross is that it skiers can relate to what they see the skiers doing. Skiers in a jacket and ski pants racing head to head down a hill is something most skiers will have done on holiday. The "fashion clause" is there to try and retain some of this image as this will be what determines if ski cross breaks into the mainstream. I think that if the sport was to allow DH suits then it would lose some of its appeal to fans and athletes. The clothing rules are now quite complicated, which doesnt help the smaller nations with little or no budget and the larger well funded teams will no doubt be able to exploit them! Ideally the clothing the athletes wear should be available in the shops to purchase, this would help with the marketing of the sport and help bring in some clothing manufacturers into the sport.
Interesting reading about peoples thoughts on Ski Cross. The clothing issue is one that seems to have provoked various reactions amongst the athletes. As Ski Cross evolved it was only a matter of time before it became more closely related to alpine racing, it is a race afterall. It has only really been in the last 2/3 seasons that national ski cross teams have formed and inevitably the bigger nations will throw more money at it as it now provides another chance of an Olympic medal.
With an Olympic Medal at stake teams are clearly going to look for every competitive advantage that they can, nothing wrong with this but part of the success of Ski Cross is that it skiers can relate to what they see the skiers doing. Skiers in a jacket and ski pants racing head to head down a hill is something most skiers will have done on holiday. The "fashion clause" is there to try and retain some of this image as this will be what determines if ski cross breaks into the mainstream. I think that if the sport was to allow DH suits then it would lose some of its appeal to fans and athletes. The clothing rules are now quite complicated, which doesnt help the smaller nations with little or no budget and the larger well funded teams will no doubt be able to exploit them! Ideally the clothing the athletes wear should be available in the shops to purchase, this would help with the marketing of the sport and help bring in some clothing manufacturers into the sport.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
OK, so I am just an old fart who doesn't understand the fashion sensitivities of today's youth, but here's a suggestion.
Perhaps FIS could relate more to young holiday skiers by introducing a "minimum @rse-crack distance", to be measured, in millimetres, by a FIS official with calipers at the finish of every skiercross event.
After all it is free
After all it is free
you're not trying to wind me up are you Martin? Surely not...?
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Just a lighthearted joke!
I'm just jealous that skiercross wasn't around when I was young - looks scary but fun.
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Haha I know I know was only kidding.
The official at the Brits this year who I mentioned suggested that I "go throw some baggy sh*t on." There's definitely a bit of confusion about what the sport is about.
It's a scary sport indeed... depends on what really frightens you though. Personally the thought of blue ice that's been hosepiped for weeks at the top of the Hahnenkamm absolutely terrifies me, whilst the 40ft kicker at Sierra Nevada's Europa Cup this year (which we were hitting out of a compression at about 75km/h) left me unphased. Each to his own!
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.
Great feature, Max. You have clearly inherited the "journalism gene", if there is such a thing.
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
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
haha thanks Martin
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Quote:
Ideally the clothing the athletes wear should be available in the shops to purchase, this would help with the marketing of the sport and help bring in some clothing manufacturers into the sport.
A bit like the old rally car rules. Perhaps, at least 1000 have to be produced and marketed /sold. Possible, I guess.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Quote:
Quote:
Ideally the clothing the athletes wear should be available in the shops to purchase, this would help with the marketing of the sport and help bring in some clothing manufacturers into the sport.
A bit like the old rally car rules. Perhaps, at least 1000 have to be produced and marketed /sold. Possible, I guess.
That is a fantastic idea... I'd go shopping!
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Quote:
Ideally the clothing the athletes wear should be available in the shops to purchase, this would help with the marketing of the sport and help bring in some clothing manufacturers into the sport.
Bizarrely enough due to the stupidly-implemented FIS rules for skier-cross and national teams naturally looking for the biggest advantage possible within those rules it's now much more difficult to get hold of a competitive outfit for skier-cross than it is downhill or other alpine disciplines as the skier-cross outfits are so specialized/small-market.
FAQ
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)!
