Best year for men's WC SL ever?

Best year for men's WC SL ever?

Postby WNYSkier » Fri Jan 30, 2015 8:12 pm

Just sayin' - This may be the best year for men's SL on the WC in many years. The level of technical skiing is exceptional. While Hirscher and the Austrians may be struggling at the moment, the skiing by the Germans is excellent with Neureuther, Dopfer, and now Strasser at the top. The Italians are led by Gross and a resurgent Razzoli and Thaler. The Swedes have Hargin, Larsson, and Myhrer.

Khoroshilov from Russia has been in the top 10 every race this year. His win at Schladming may have been the 2 best SL runs of the past 10 years in terms of technical execution. I have NEVER seen fore/aft balance like that, textbook in nearly every turn of both runs.

But for me the biggest development in the front of the field is execution of the Essentials: especially CA and CB. The amount of CA these skiers are bringing is huge, especially holding the extreme CA right through release. This has brought a level of consistency of execution not seen before.

So go to You Tube, download the videos and do some frame by frame and see how all the Essentials are executed all of the time by some of the best skiers.

As a final note: GS, well not so much. Great skiers hobbled by awful skis. It's hard to look world class when you are forced to use 30 year old ski technology.....
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Re: Best year for men's WC SL ever?

Postby h.harb » Sat Jan 31, 2015 8:55 am

Although going to the best world cup skiers for validation is great, however, their level of angle development and forces they deal with is inconceivable for the average skier. All you need to do is go to this Blog post. It's all explained and frame by frame demos are posted, at a reasonable level that skiers can achieve.
http://harbskisysems.blogspot.com/2014/10/pmts-skier-development-transition.html
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Re: Best year for men's WC SL ever?

Postby jbotti » Sat Jan 31, 2015 4:49 pm

WNYSkier wrote:As a final note: GS, well not so much. Great skiers hobbled by awful skis. It's hard to look world class when you are forced to use 30 year old ski technology.....


I agree with you 100% on this amazing season we are having in Slalom. However I have changed my mind on the new GS skis. I was absolutely aghast and thought it was a terrible idea. But watching what Hirscher, Ligety and Pinterault can do on 35m TR skis is astounding. And if you look at the angles they are getting and the arcs they are making it's all pretty much historic. No one in history has arced turns the way these guys are now. Many talk about the golden age of GS skiing being the time when everyone was on 21m shaped GS skis. Compare that skiing to today's skiing and you will see that sport has made a quantum leap forward.

Here is Benni Raich winning at Kranska Gora in 2005 (on 21m skis). Even with skis that arc much tighter, the course is set much straighter than we see today and he is skiing it much straighter than we see today. Compare the arcs versus what Ted and Hirscher do today. Today's skiers must arc rounder turns and they have to do it on wider TR skis. The result with the best skiers is that they are getting massive edge angles and arcing round, carved turns (and yes of course not on every turn). Having said this, for the mere mortals that are skiing WC GS, a lot or even most of the time it is pretty ugly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZtHZ8E_YXg

I think you can make a strong case that we are currently in the Golden Age of GS skiing!
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Re: Best year for men's WC SL ever?

Postby CO_Steve » Sat Jan 31, 2015 6:43 pm

h.harb wrote:Although going to the best world cup skiers for validation is great, however, their level of angle development and forces they deal with is inconceivable for the average skier. All you need to do is go to this Blog post. It's all explained and frame by frame demos are posted, at a reasonable level that skiers can achieve.
http://harbskisysems.blogspot.com/2014/10/pmts-skier-development-transition.html



I found this blog to be one of the best things you've posted, and that's a high standard.
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Re: Best year for men's WC SL ever?

Postby h.harb » Sat Jan 31, 2015 7:04 pm

John I agree, the 35 meter GS skis are horrid to ski on, however the kind of skiing that can be done on these skis by the top 3 is incredible. There is a big jump from the top 3 to the rest.
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Re: Best year for men's WC SL ever?

Postby speedcontrol » Mon Feb 02, 2015 12:54 pm

The competition between the brands is very interesting this year as well. Head is dominating the speed events and is also leading in GS (men and women) follwed closely by Atomic. In slalom however Nordica (men) and Rossignol(women) seem to be the names ,also followed closely by Atomic . Anything can happen by the end !
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Re: Best year for men's WC SL ever?

Postby h.harb » Wed Feb 04, 2015 10:56 am

Quick ski and boot "World Cup", combo evaluation. Head skis are almost perfect. Head boots are perfect for speed and GS. Head slalom boots and set ups are weak. Now don't get all flustered because you are on Head boots. This is on injected snow, step carving at 40mph, with 13 meter arcs, with your hip on the snow. If you can ski like Alexi Pinturault you know what I mean. Don't panic they are great for free skiing.

Atomic skis are harsh, stiff and hard to ski. Atomic boots are harsh, over canted and the cuff set up is too strong. Nordica (Technica same boot) has it dialed. Volkl bought Dalbello so next season look for Dalbello to become a top race boot. I am getting a pair of their newly straight cuff design World Cup boots to test. Fischer: you need to have a wizard as a tech to set up the boots. Langes are a women's boot.
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Re: Best year for men's WC SL ever?

Postby theorist » Tue Nov 10, 2015 12:44 pm

h.harb wrote:Volkl bought Dalbello so next season look for Dalbello to become a top race boot. I am getting a pair of their newly straight cuff design World Cup boots to test.

That would be the DRS World Cup. What did you think of them? Next year Dalbello will be making a 98 mm version of these, to replace the current DRS Scorpion; it should be announced at SIA in January.
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