WC Racers Leaning In

WC Racers Leaning In

Postby jbotti » Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:25 am

Harald has preached Counter Balance for years. On ice it is almost impossible to get significant edge angles (the kind necessary in WC technical events) using inclination (leaning in) without it presenting problems (Dave Ryding would have a WC win had he not leaned in when he was leading the race in the last run in Levi earlier this season). And ice has always been the true test of great technical skiing. Perhaps until we saw the WC racing on fresh, cold super grippy snow which we saw at the Olympics in S Korea and again yesterday in the WC finals in Are Sweden. Because WC racers don't see these conditions all that often it presented a huge challenge in S Korea and to some degree again yesterday. It is amazing how many racers dig their inside ski in these conditions. On ice if they get a little inside they can get away with it (as far as inside ski pressure, they do risk losing their stance ski as they lean in) but in the super grippy snow it just grabs the inside ski and rails it and it doesn't take a lot of leaning in to grab the ski. I know because this is the snow we have 90% of the time in Montana. It's really fun to ski on (many call it hero snow) but if you get inside and weight that inside ski the party is over quick.

No surprise that Hirscher had no issue with it yesterday as his CB is immaculate. Shiffrin as well killed it in yesterdays slalom winning by over 1.5 seconds.

Too bad they had to cancel today's races due to wind. Hirscher was going for his 14th win of the season and Shiffrin her 13th. Pretty amazing!
Balance: Essential in skiing and in life!
User avatar
jbotti
 
Posts: 2184
Joined: Fri Nov 28, 2003 10:05 am

Re: WC Racers Leaning In

Postby mountainbum » Sun Mar 18, 2018 9:39 pm

So that explains why I fall when going for high edge angles on grippy colorado snow!...but if I focus on a narrow stance and CB everything gets rock solid.
User avatar
mountainbum
 
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Mar 23, 2016 5:57 pm


Return to Racing

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests