TORINO: Alpine: Ligety, Morin talk slalom strategy, Miller's quest for recollection

By Published On: February 25th, 2006Comments Off on TORINO: Alpine: Ligety, Morin talk slalom strategy, Miller's quest for recollection

TORINO: Alpine: Ligety, Morin talk slalom strategy, Miller’s quest for “recollection”{mosimage}SESTRIERE, Italy – Bode Miller and Ted Ligety each straddled in the Olympic men’s slalom, along with at least a dozen racers. For Miller it was the perfectly typical slalom experience, but for Ligety it was rare.

‘When I come in to a gate my tips are normally pointed out’ said Ligety in an interview the day before the slalom. ‘I hook tips pretty rarely. Almost never… Schladming was the only time I caught a tip on a gate. That’s the first time I hooked a tip in almost a year.’

Ligety said his low straddle rate was because of the direction his skis are pointing when he passes a gate.

‘A lot of guys when they come into a gate are pointed straight down the hill, I’m still pointed outside the course a little bit and am just able to cut the line off a little bit more’ he explained. ‘I’m taking a steeper-angled approach than most people.’

About Miller’s frequent straddles, Ligety said Miller often feathers the ski into the turn and then tries to hook under the gate, running the risk of the ski’s shovel catching and bending and going on the wrong side of the gate.

‘He kind of skis from behind it’ said Ligety. ‘You see in lots of photos that the gates are coming straight across his skis and he’s pointed right across the hill as he comes by the gate. If you’re skiing like that, it’s going to be really easy to go right through the gate.’

Ligety guessed that the same thing that made Miller straddle frequently is the same thing that makes Miller break his skis. ‘I don’t think I’ve broken a single pair of slalom skis this year’ said Ligety. ‘That shows the line I’m taking.’

Mike Morin, the GS/SL coach of the U.S. Ski Team’s men’s squad, said Miller is on a continual search to get back to the feeling he had in slalom in 2001, when he won by large margins, but that equipment and physiological changes made that a possibly quixotic endeavor.

‘He’s on a totally different package, but he has this feeling, this recollection, of exactly what it felt like to ski then’ said Morin. ‘He’s trying to get back there. He’s looking into the skis, but it might not only be the skis.’

Morin pointed out that all the weight Miller has put on since 2001 — most of it muscle — has changed his body type. Morin said Miller still scores well on team fitness tests, but that the actual sensation of what he can do in a slalom turn must have changed with the addition of more than 30 pounds of mass.

As for the sensation that Miller was searching for, Morin said it was ‘vivid’ and that Miller had explained it to Morin over the years.

‘He wants the ski to have grip in the forebody of the ski, so that at the entrance of the turn that ski can really pull it’s way back into the gate’ said Morin. ‘That feeling where that ski grips properly — not properly, but the way he’s recalling — is what he’s looking for. It’s right in the apex of the turn, right as the ski’s coming into the gate.’

For an interview with Robbie Kristan, the man who tunes Miller’s skis and communicates with the Atomic factory about what Miller likes and doesn’t like, click here.

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About the Author: Pete Rugh