Here we are, just two days from the first training run at Lake Louise, Alberta. I was sitting at the Howard Head Vail Valley Hospital waiting for a young female athlete from the PV Alpine Camp who had injured her thumb and was getting x-rays. I ran into a couple of old friends from the Italian team who were there to accompany Werner Heel who had flown down from Calgary to get his hand operated on by Dr. Randall Viola. It is a testament to Randy that they would fly him down from Calgary just to fly him back tomorrow. According to the coaches, he is planning on being in the start house on Wednesday up in Lake Louise. At that point, I realized I had not done a Lake Louise hill preview and should get on that when I got back to the condo.
Lake Louise is majestic. From the gorgeous Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise where the whole tour stays to the ski area, to Banff National Park, it is definitely among the most picturesque stops on tour. And as I mentioned before, the race crew and organizers do a great job putting on three weeks of speed events starting with the men’s DH training run this week. They will hammer straight through the Women’s World Cup and the Men’s and Women’s Nor Ams coming up directly after the women are done. In fact, the Nor Am crowd will roll into town as the women’s tour is leaving to head back to Europe.
The race starts with a straight shot off the top known as the Saddle past Lone Pine and onto the Sunset Flats. Still in full tuck the boys will start to have to deal with terrain on every turn at the end of the flats and into the Super G start at Tickety Chutes which is named for the chutes off to skier’s left. As the boys pass the Super G start they will drop down a steep pitch at Tickety and bend to the left onto Wiwaxy flats. Wiwaxy has some swinging turns and terrain to deal with and some pretty high speed coming off Tickety. The end of Wiwaxy brings a right-handed bend at Coaches Corner and we enter the business portion of the Lake Louise track. Coaches to a side-hill jump into Waterfall. Waterfall leads to Fishnet turn and then Fall-away. These are all turns that require some tactical awareness and execution. Mostly taken out of the tuck, these turns need respect in line but need focus and aggression to get the turns done effectively. Fall-away really becomes the crux of the race. Start it too early or too late and you will get pulled hard to skier’s right and have to traverse across the piste to C turn and then back across to Gunbarrel. If that happens, the athlete covers far too much ground and kills too much speed to be competitive as it is all flat and glide turns from there to the finish. But the race is far from over; you can still lose the race or lose a great result if you think you are done at this point. Through Gunbarrel there is a lot of speed (TJ Lanning was injured in this section last year) in the full-bull looking for speed and then the trail bends to the left into Double Trouble and crosses under the lift. As it does so, there are two small rolls that can squash the athlete and can cause some small line problems. The trail then bends to the right and toward the finish at Claire’s Corner which requires a line out by the B net and a very clean turn over the roll there. Some years there is a jump after Claire’s and other years there has been only a roll with a blind turn underneath. Either way, the skier is going to need to remain aware to the finish. I saw a few athletes get knocked out of the top 30 or top 10 or off the podium by blowing the turn at Claire’s or not paying close attention across Easy Street at the bottom.
Many times, Lake Louise is disrespected as a “gliders course” meaning it is too flat to be a World Cup Downhill. But I think it is exactly this kind of lack of respect among the World Cup athletes that causes them to not perform their best. Similar to the slalom opener in Levi, the men on the tour often forgo tactics altogether thinking they can just “pin it” the whole way. That leads to errors in execution and mistakes that are costly in the major turns but also in the areas that are deemed “easy.” Lake Louise is viewed within the tour as an easy Downhill; I see it as a tricky one. And if you go look up results in the past there have been legends who have dominated it at times. Herrmann Maier has always been strong there; Bode has done his share of damage, as have Stephan Eberharter and Aksel Svindal. Go through the list, it is a testament to the best Downhillers in history when you look at the podiums at the Winterstart at Lake Louise. And of course, Lindsey Vonn has been all but unbeatable in the Ladies DH.
I look forward to this race every year. It is a great hill for all of our American Downhillers and those Canadian boys have just been phenomenal here over the past few years. It’s a lot of fun for us from the North American countries to knock down some good results in Lake Louise to start the speed season.
Good luck to everyone and there will be more to come including a little help with your picks on www.fantasyskiracer.com.
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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.
About the Author: Pete Rugh
