Why Brits Bother to Race and Sponsor Speed

A snowHead

Bojan Krizaj, Paul Frommelt, Ingemar Stenmark, Alain Baxter, and a few more, world famous as technical skiers but having in common nations without big mountains; the only exception would be Luxembourg with only a radio station but had Marc Giradelli from Austria. The odds are stacked so high against GB downhill or SG; a ski supplier is not going to give up their fast skis for you and we know just like GP racing you have to have the fast kit to win. So why not concentrate only on special slalom? We can find the skiers with the skills on plastic and indoor and develop a small team by competition and find those with the skills but above all mental capacity to win! Then finance their coaching and international career. We save money, parents won’t go bankrupt or in hoc for years just chasing a dream which will not come true. For speed one needs a resort to train, whilst slalom only needs a piste and skills will out: slalom piste gate positions change, whereas an FIS downhill needs to be learnt over years to be competitive. So let’s go for technical only in this time of austerity.

A snowHead

Have you seen how steep and long a FIS Slalom piste is?

GB competitors would still need to train Abroad or in Scotland to get anywhere near the standard needed.

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

Cynic, well, I'd argue that Liechtenstein (Frommelt) and what was then Yugoslavia (Krizaj) do have big enough mountains and both they and Sweden have turned out top rank DH and SGers.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Cynic,Are you just trying to wind people up? Do you have any experience in racing at all? IMO what you say is completely wrong.

Firstly you can show all the promise you like on indoor & dry slope in slalom but a lot still cannot convert that to racing on snow. It's a completely different ball game. Steeper, much longer, much more offset, completely varied conditions etc etc!

The GB Senior team is pretty small as it is and at the moment they still cannot be financed fully. ONLY 3 of the Men's team actually train for speed events (DH & SG), the other 3 train for the technical events (SL & GS). The speed team also do tech training and race in GS & SL. In fact one of the speed team is also ranked No1 in GB for GS.

Where are all the races? In the Alps! Where are we all based? In the UK. So it will still cost almost the same to do a full season of FIS racing in just the technical events as it does for doing some speed events too.

Most of the young GB skiers coming through also do not do much speed anyhow. The reason? A lot have been brought up just doing the tech events and are actually scared to race full DH & SG.
If you look at the numbers who entered the British champs DH in 2011. 20 GB females & 40 GB males. For most it was only their first or second DH race of the year.

Slalom is also the most difficult event to succeed in. To get your FIS world ranking points down low enough to get a start number low enough in a world cup race to even give themselves a chance of a second run is almost impossible. Ask Dave Ryding & Noel Baxter (Alain's 1/2 brother). They are both great Slalom skiers.

Having been on the racing circuit for 13 years now. It doesn't matter how good or bad little Johnny is, if their parents are chasing the dream they will spend the money to try to get them there. And despite what you think very few of them ever do any speed events at all.
Also the guys in the team do get pretty good skis for speed. TJ has used some of Michael Walchhofer DH & SG for a whole season and used a set of Carlo Yanka's DH skis for the World Junior champs in 2010 where he finished 18th, less than 0.6 off a top 5 place. The other guys have deals with the factory's too.
Also Slalom skis are very different too. The pair that Snow & Rock sell as factory race slalom skis are completely different to the pairs the factory supply to the National teams. They wouldn't give decent skis to any of our younger lesser racers.
So none of your argument really stands up.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

To answer SPUD yes I have seen and skied many FIS slalom piste, my idea is to train and sponsor technical skiers in scotland and abroad in ways we do now, but not speed, thus focusing resources to a team that may have better results.
To Bode the Wenzels and the base jumping Marco Buechel were Liechtenstein heroes, but Marco trained with the Swiss and Liechtenstein is possibly a better financed country than GB.

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Cynic, Good luck with your idea. A lot of the academy/teams do only do technical training anyhow. Succeeding in the tech events is still just as difficult as speed, especially when you come from a non alpine nation like GB where skiing is so under funded.

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

Personally I think the idea is daft and not well thought out, but each to their own of course.

These coaches are obviously thinking of the kids, and prices don't seem too bad.

http://www.alpinetrainingcentre.com/course/junior-race-camp

http://www.britskiacad.org.uk/

After all it is free

Fast skis are surely needed to win WC, but once you have chance to win WC, you can be pretty sure, you will get best possible material from manufacturer. I totally agree they won't give you their top skis (if any at all) for being 50th on EC race, but you can come to top 30 on WC, without having endless supply of top skis from Atomic, Head or Fischer. Once you come to top 30, you can bet on this, that companies attitude toward you will change Wink

Do you think Chemmy for example has problems getting her skis? Sure I agree she doesn't get same set or same quantity and same quality as Lindsey or Maria get, but then again, her results are nowhere near results of Lindsey or Maria. Yet she still doesn't have problems getting at least kinda decent skis.
As far as "big mountains" are concerned... I don't think it's much of a problem. Even countries with big mountains don't produce endless supply for great DH skiers. DH, especially on WC level, is so specific discipline, that you need years of WC racing before you can be considered contender for winning single race. There's bunch of top junior skiers in Austria or Switzerland, yet they are nowhere near top places once they come to WC. Even these guys need years of WC level racing before they can finally start winning.
Is it easier to win slalom then DH? I don't think so... both are specific and for both you need to train. And that doesn't mean plastic, but real snow Wink

Only difference is, that it's much easier to "rent" SL course, then DH course. But even that can be done with proper planning. I know how everyone else but Austrian and Swiss team operate, so yes it can be done even for smaller nations. Most likely it's even harder to win slalom WC then DH wc. If nothing else, there's much more people on SL startlist then on DH start list Wink

Cynic, There is also another interesting factor to look at.

There are many "brits" who could race for the UK who have never skied indoors or been down a dryslope Puzzled

Its because they have lived in the Alps most of there lives, as their parents live and work there, these kids are over looked by British skiing IMHO

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Am I right to think that overall Britain's best WC/Olympic results have come in the speed events and the combined events? Notable exception is Alain Baxter, of course, but overall I think we do better in DH and SG? Unless we have been deliberately holding back our technical skiers, and I can't imagine that is the case, then purely on past results we should be focusing on the speed events. Not that I'm advocating that.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

I personally can see Brits doing better in Freestyle events in the future, where they are not so reliant on the fastest Skis and split seconds.

Obviously finance is the biggest factor in anyone continueing after training as a Junior and sponsership seems harder to come by.

For Manufacturers like Atomic, Head, Fischer etc It is beneficial for a British Skier to do well at World Cup Level, as their profile will instantly increase. This extra exposure would open the market more, and make the British public more aware. Brits spend fortunes on Skis and clothing. It's a massive market.

Of all the skiers in recent years, Chemmy was getting the most exposure. Good results, as well as being marketable and photogenic. She had/has the whole package that sponsers and the media like. Just a shame about her leg break.

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I posted in the 'ski's are getting longer' thread that the new regulations could be very good for British Ski racers. With intelligent coaching the new regulations could be an opportunity to jump up the rankings as new technique & tactics are developed.

AndAnotherThing.., Virtually ALL the Alpine nation ski teams are fighting the changes to the ski regs. They are saying that they will cause more injuries as the turn radius has been increased and the skis are much harder to turn, so you have to take a more direct line into the gates and straddling will happen more often. A Downhill gate at 70mph! Ouch. So they may not happen.
They all agree that the increase in injuries is due to making the courses too icy, to a point where they are almost unskiable. And also that in the technical events the gates are now so offset that there is more force going through the knees etc than the body can cope with.
Also the planned changes will only effect the WC & Europa Cup skiers in 2012/13 season. The lesser level of races incl COC, FIS & Entry league do not have to apply the rules until 2013/14 season.
Don't think it will benefit British racers at all. There are only a handful of GB skiers who race/train at WC level, so unless you want to buy the very latest WC skis for your 16 yr old FIS ski racer they will be skiing on the "old" skis for at least another 2 years.

You know it makes sense.

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

Plugboy there was a whole lot of misleading with this rules change issue Wink

One of "arguments" I really like is "skis are so much longer, that there will be lot of straddling, since it's impossible to control such long skis so close to gates". Realistically... current GS skis (at least for men) are between 191 and 193. Extra 2cm won't make so much of a difference, and more or less everyone I know agree with this Wink

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Why Brits Bother to Race and Sponsor Speed

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