The World Cup According to Grande: Men's DH Review and Women's Preview

It is snowing again in Whistler. Luckily for me it is giving me a chance to get caught up on watching some video of the Men’s DH race and form some opinions. I have been driving all over the Western USA helping the athletes from Mission Ridge compete. We were in Jackson, Wyoming last week, getting back here last Monday. Then we were on the road to Mt. Hood, Oregon on Friday morning, arriving back in Wenatchee late last night. We had some great results last week and as I said, I am finally getting a chance to get caught up on the Olympic scene.

Defago, Svindal and Miller

First of all, I am not sure why the organizers, IOC and FIS were able to go from the top start. The long-standing “rule” has always been that the highest start you can use is the highest start used on a timed training day. They raced 40 guys or so from the upper start but then canceled the run and did not post as official. Then they started a full-run from the Kombi start. I suppose they could have discussed with Team Captains and voted to go from the upper, knowing that the true medal contenders had run from the upper start. In any event, I am glad they went from the upper start. It is a much more exciting downhill from up there.

I have had the good fortune of working with Bode for a number of years. I have heard him talk about a lot of things during that time. I also watched his change in outward attitude from 2002-2006 and beyond. How he shrunk away from the media and teammates, and even from fans. But everyone needs to understand, in central Europe, he is a huge star. It is not like being a football player, or soccer star. It’s rock-star status. He has drawn huge crowds to bib draws that were only really there to see him. I saw dramatic late entrances, pushing the limits of the World Cup rules. NFL guys and rock-star guys have body guards and barriers between themselves and the fans. Ski racers have only a thin piece of crowd control net and then when they leave the arena they are out in the street. Just like anyone else. And some of them get mobbed. One friend of mine from Italy once told me when asked why she was such a big fan, “Because we can know them, meet them, say hello to them. They are accessible.” Bode was accessible for a long time. He was also brash and creative. He pushed limits on and off the hill. He was a risk taker. He flew in the face of the staid, stiff, Austrian approach to ski racing. He brought pure speed and guts, and he changed the sport. The people who rule the sport changed the rules to combat his risky approach. They tightened course setting rules, changed ski length rules and stand-height rules. You can say that they did it in the name of safety, but look at the timing of the rule changes.  It was because of him. Because he challenged the conventions of the sport and was starting to have a lot of success, others were taking that kind of attacking attitude and the FIS and some federations were seeing their status quo melting away. They had to grab it back, and they did it by forcing through rule change.

Since I first met him, he always said and stuck to one thing about ski racing. He often said he wanted to feel satisfied with what he put-down on the hill. That first, fourth or fifteenth didn’t matter; as long as he felt like he left it all out there. And obviously, from his reaction in the finish area in Whistler, he felt that way. And at .09 out, another of his mantras came true.  “I came out on the wrong side of the hundredths.” He always said that win or lose; you do your best and let the clock decide. And that always resonated with me since I started ski racing 36 years ago. No matter what you did, the clock was the only judge. No opinions, no judges, you were fast or you were not. More often than not in this sport you are not as fast as someone else for many reasons too numerous to go into here. But that is the essence of alpine ski racing at its very core. You do your best and hope you fall on the right side of the hundredths. So much so that Spyder even prints “Hundies Matter” on their speed suits. Maybe this bronze medal in such a close race will give Bode the inner confidence and relaxation to compete for medals in Kombi and Super-G as well.

I liked watching this race for a number of reasons. First of all, I have watched Didier Defago develop from a GS/SG skier who was somewhat effective and occasionally fast into a big-time downhiller. He has gotten much bigger and stronger since 2003 and has truly embraced his downhilling. He has won on different types of hills. He won Wengen and Kitzbuhel back to back last year. Those hills could not be any more different. And Whistler is different than either of those hills. Whistler has more linked turns along with a lot of terrain and twists in the hill. I think that is why you saw guys with solid technical backgrounds succeed there over the pure downhillers. I also think the softer snow helped all three medalists because all of them have always displayed great touch on the snow.  Defago was best again, if only by a little bit.

One last comment on the Men’s race, 3 different ski companies were on the podium.  Rossignol, Atomic and Head split the medals at .09 seconds. That is a unique situation and parity in ski company competition is very important to our sport from the highest level to the lowest.
THE GIRLS DOWNHILL GOES TOMORROW?

I know that the women are now scheduled to go tomorrow with their DH race at the Olympics. I hope that there can be some reasonable expectation of doing so with the current weather conditions. I am sure the “Weasels” are working their butts off to get it ready to go.

I will also say I hope it is a fair race. That it is not strictly a draw-race. By that I mean that luck of what number you have chosen is what determines your finish placing. In the men’s race I think that Defago was probably the last guy to have a chance to win looking at what was going on with the bottom of the hill by the time Marco went at 27. I am not saying Marco’s problems were caused by the conditions, but it was slushy from the Fall-away flat to the bottom by the time he went.  So to take that scenario further, let’s say Julia Mancuso, who has very little control over her pick in 14th on the WCSL, gets left with 22. And with an 11 AM start time, a lot can happen. The sun is at a higher angle this time of year and the Whistler Creekside Finish is only about 700 meters in elevation. So if the sun does peek through tomorrow, which it is forecast to do with a high temperature in the base area of +3 Celsius, you can get a pretty sloppy surface. The forecast is to be around -2 Celsius at the GS start around an hour into the race tomorrow too, keeping it barely cool enough. The situation is further complicated by all of the new snow that has fallen today, making it very difficult to use salt or any other hardener on the surface if things get baking on the surface. So now even more pressure gets put on the draw and to execute if you land an excellent pick. I am sure the course workers will do a great job in getting all of the snow off the track so an early number would be better than late. But I would think that picking early within the selection group would be premium. I am sure the Lindsey and Thomas along with Alex Hoedlmoser are trying to decide what number to draw. Do they go with 8? Or is 10 better so they can get a read on what is going on with one of the better ranked athletes starting ahead of her? I bet she draws between 8 and 12. And more likely 12 as there is only an 8 minute difference there.

What about Julia? She will likely get left with 20-22 left on the board when it is her turn. The good thing about Julia is that she is a big event skier. She always has been. Whether it was Far West Championships as a littl
e kid, or Junior Olympics, Topolino, Whistler Cup or World Juniors.  She has done it all including her gold in Torino. On top of that, Julia and Lindsey have been going at it since they were children. They are rivals and always have been. Lindsey has been the queen of the World Cup since Torino and Julia has pretty much fallen into the background. But don’t be surprised at all to see her start to emerge again in Whistler. Nothing surprises me when it comes to Julia and her determination to come through on the big stage. I was there in Torino and there was no choke in her whatsoever. And she is a coastal kid from Squaw Valley, California. The snow in Whistler is almost exactly what she grew up on, and that counts for a lot. I think she might take joy in stealing a little attention from Lindsey.

Lins showed that she is so much better at DH than anyone else that her shin problem will not stand in her way. She won the training run with it hurting pretty badly. I think she will overcome it and get it done. The only thing I don’t like is that she is too willing to talk about it being bad. Eventually, if she continues to complain about it, she could lose all the good-will she has built up with her fan-base. And she could start to believe it too.

The other players should be Riesch and maybe Paerson. But I think it is still Lindsey’s race even with the injury. I like Britt Janyk, a Whistler local to have a good showing and Marchand-Arvier from France. The other thing I really liked in the training run was the performance from Stacey Cook from Mammoth, California. After her tough crash in the first training run that was canceled after Stacey hit the fence, Stace has bounced back with a solid performance in training.

So without further ado: Vonn is Gold, Riesch is Silver and Paerson is Bronze. I like Marchand and Janyk as outside chances. Julia has not shown on the podium this season in DH so I find it hard to predict her to be there. But it would not shock me if she grabbed a spot on the podium.
The really good news out of Whistler is that it looks like the weather will break and it will get cold. Making for great racing on some excellent snow the rest of the way!

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Greg “Grande” Needell grew up ski racing at Stratton Mountain, Vermont. After graduating from SMS he skied for NCAA Division 1 St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY where he was co-captain in 1986. Greg returned to SMS to coach there for five years serving as the Head Women’s Coach as well as the Head J2 Men’s Coach. He then moved to Mission Ridge in Wenatchee, Washington in 1992 to become the Program Director and Head Coach of the Mission Ridge Ski Club. In 1997, Greg became the Head Coach at Mammoth Mountain, California.

In 2002 Needell was asked to join the U.S. Ski Team staff as a World Cup SL and GS coach. From 2002 to 2008 Needell helped lead the U.S. Ski Team Men to 43 wins, 105 podiums and 264 top ten finishes. Now at the helm of Alpine Race Consulting, Needell offers his knowledge and experience to clubs nationwide.

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