Mens SG Garmisch

A snowHead

Watched it this morning.

30 DNF's... Shocked

What's that all about?

Surely some questions have to be asked of the course.

A snowHead

Nobody seemed to be complaining. Bode said that the course was grippy not icy and was a good course. He also said it was HIS mistake that lost him his pole and ultimately shot his chance of winning. He was well ahead when he caught his right arm in one of the gates. He was generally very complimentary about the course preparation and the setting. I'm no Bode fan normally but to be honest if there was something amiss, he would have said so as he is no slouch at coming forward usually. His interviews for both Eurosport and German TV were interesting.

Marco Büchel who is commentating for the German TV providers said that it is a hard course and always has been, but this is a World Championship and therefore it should be a harder than norm,al WC course. A lot of the DNFs I saw went out at the same place making errors on the line. There were definitely no voices raised talking about "safety issues". The lower order racers perhaps were out of their depth?

No-one was saying anything until Lindsey Vonn made her comments on her Facebook page. She has now admitted that she is still not really on form after her horrific training accident at Hinterreit last week. She did not take part in the Downhill training this afternoon and yesterday after her race, she said that she had a really bad headache and was not really "aware" (her word not mine) of her skis, the track, etc as she normally would be. I hope she recovers soon and is back in the best form.

The Kandahar is always a testing track, ask Michael Walchofer about his "corner", but he was out there today giving it his all. Toofy Grin

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Fair comments...and yes you are right. many went out at the same gate. It just seemed a massive amount of DNF's.

DH should be interesting... Razz

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Don't think the lower order racers were out of their depth as their were 17 DNF from the top 40 racers and 13 from the next 38. The lower ranked racers were not carrying as much speed so any line errors were easier to correct.
The guy who was placed 30th was nearly 7 seconds off the winners time, so much slower.
A very similar thing happened at the World Junior champs SG last year. Just a very tough course with some diffcult line set. A lot of the top 40 DNF'd
Pity about both Ed & TJ though. I know they will both be very annoyed with themselves as both were capable of finishing in the top 30 especially with the DNF's!

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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Sleipnir, Yes he came out where almost everyone else did. Was looking pretty good until then, was 2 seconds down at the 45 second split. So could have made a top 30.
I don't know what Ed's split was or where he came out.
I have only seen it on the BBC iplayer. Here is the link.
http://tj-ski.com/?q=node/130
Hope you can view it
DH training run tomorrow. Ed bib 49, TJ 53. Should be same for race.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Plugboy, watching the tail end of the coverage it looked very much like the up-and-comers were finding it way too much. But looking at the finish list it looks more like your figures tell. It's even more interesting to look at it by start number decades:

1-10: 4 DNF
11-20: 1 DNF
21-30: 3 DNF, 1 DNS
31-40: 8 DNF
41-50: 5 DNF
51-60: 4 DNF
61-73: 5 DNF, 1 DNS

So the real carnage was in the up-and-comers group (starting just before Ed and finishing pretty much with TJ - only 4 finishers from 29-44, Bertrand was the DNS at 29 IIRC ). So those who were giving it a real go, but don't quite have the skills to hold it on such a difficult course were the ones that really suffered. I guess the later ones probably saw there was carnage out there and mostly backed off to just get the finish - looking at the time differences they really start spacing out around finish position 25, bib numbers 40+. I'm surprised to see Bank with such a high bib number, so not too surprised he's a bit of an exception in the finish list.

More grist to the anti-Brit TV coverage conspiracy mill though Wink

- yet again a Brit run (Ed's this time) was timed to perfection with an interview down in the finish area rolling eyes

. So what interruptions are we going to bet on for Dave's runs in these Championships?

After all it is free

Miller's runs was awesome, particularly with just one pole for much of it ! Still cant believe he stood up for the final section, that cost him a bit extra and he still finished 12th.

I am very, very cross with Eurosport. It's the World Championship FFS! Why can't they show the whole race with all the competitors? Thanks Plugboy, for the link to TJ's run.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

GrahamN, I would hardly call bib 29-44 the up and comers. They all race at Europa cup speed races, some are World cup racers too. All are ranked in the top 180 in the world for Super G. Andre Bank was such a high bib number because he has high Super G FIS points as he is a tech skier mainly SL.
It wasn´t that they were finding it way too much at all. They are racers and go flat out at all times. Just line errors on a very difficult section.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Heard that Kostelić says he was proud to be the first to win a medal for his country in a speed discipline but nows he's going to take a holiday as the course takes a lot out of you and it's not worth the risk. (Source = Austrian Newspaper)

The overall Worldcup is his focus whereas most others are 'going for Gold'.

snow reports

Plugboy, they are on the "up-and-coming" circuit which is the main focus of the Europa/Nor-Am Cup - to up the ante and give inexperienced racers time to acquire the skills and experience they need to race at World Cup level. Not all racers are ever capable of making the transition. We are not denigrating them in any way

Remember that their start numbers, had this been a World Cup event where nations are not limited to 4 racers, would have been considerably higher. And that is assuming that they would have reached the cut-off any way.

I find GrahamN's breakdown interesting and feel it does support my earlier statement that the racers concerned in the later numbers were not up to all the challenges of this particular course. Going like the clappers does not win races, it is having the skill, knowledge and experience which allows you to go flat out when you should and when to treat the course with more respect. That is not to say that they are not good racers and could have the potential to improve and comeback in the future and possibly win medals.

DB, I can see where Kostelic is going on this - why risk injury when he is so close to achieving the higher goal of being overall World Champion. But wasn't his sister the first Croat to do this? I thought she won loads including in all the competitions, WC, World Championships and Olympics? Financially I think he can earn more in sponsorship as the overall champion than as a Bronze/Silver/Gold medal winner at the Worlds. Cool

More power to him is my view. I read he is coming back next week for the technical events though

Toofy Grin

Yeah I'm surprised Kostelic was doing any race bar the SL. I know Svindals plan is to let Kostelic knacker himself out and then try and get him in the last races after the WM, so if I was Kostelic I'd say thanks for the medal and sit it out till the SL.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

Samerberg Sue, exactly!

Help!!

Mens SG Garmisch

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