The Olympics put athletes from less mainstream sports into limelight for two weeks. Sports like luge, skeleton, and bobsled, or the likes of shooting or fencing in the Summer Games, hardly get lots of worldwide exposure apart from their Olympic events which are broadcast on major channels around the world. Even sports like athletics and swimming are more or less niche sports outside the major events, and the likes of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps wouldn't be such huge stars without their Olympic success, and to a lesser extent their World Championship success.
Ski sports are highly popular in Central and Northern Europe with lots of media coverage even outside the Olympics and the Worlds. But outside their heartlands, the ski sports become mainstream only once in four years during the Winter Olympics. And in the eyes of those once-in-four-years fans, even the greatest career can be seen as mediocre if the success at the Olympics has eluded.
Olympic and World Championship success is a great way to determine athletes' greatness in sports like athletics and swimming. Those are sports where athletes set their goals in succeeding at the major events. I don't really like putting Olympic success way over World Championship success because an unfortunate injury may ruin your Olympic season and four years is a long period until your next chance at the Olympics. You may get fewer chances at the Olympics, though it still takes the same effort to win at the Worlds. Though winning gold medals at two consecutive Olympics probably makes you a bigger legend than gold medals from three consecutive world championships, although both achievements take the same time.
Ski sports are different from athletics or swimming. Regardless of the venue, the running track is 400 meters and the Olympic pool is 50 meters. In ski sports, every venue is different, favoring different athletes. Some alpine skiers do better on steep slopes, others on flat ones. In cross-country skiing a tough course allows the athletes with better endurance to break away from the field while easier courses allow the best sprinters to stay in the leading group throughout the race to win it in the last kilometer. And every ski jumper has hills that suit them better and hills that don't suit them that well.
Besides, the ski sports have highly important season-long circuits, the World Cup tours. In a season-long circuit you will face venues that suit you better and venues that don't suit you so well. The World Cup rewards those who can do well at most venues and have the consistency to perform at their best throughout the winter. You can see one-hit wonders winning Olympic gold medals, though you can't see them winning World Cup titles.
I am one who puts the World Cup titles above everything else in ski sports. If you're good on certain types of hills or courses, you can win multiple gold medals in your career but winning World Cup titles requires a more complete set of skills and season-long consistency. Four-time Olympic silver medalist and the 2003 World gold medalist in slalom, Ivica Kostelić, has said the lack of an Olympic gold medal doesn't matter that much because he's won the biggest prize in the sport, the World Cup overall title. Olympic and World Championship medals are awarded in single disciplines; the overall World Cup title requires success in multiple disciplines in the same season. Kostelić skipping his preferred disciplines slalom and combined at the 2011 Worlds after the super-G bronze medal in order to concentrate on winning the World Cup overall title further highlights the importance of the big crystal globe.
For sure the Olympic and World Championship medals aren't meaningless alongside the World Cup titles. Firstly, especially the Olympics are the most-viewed competitions in the sport. I bet most Americans know Ted Ligety as a two-time Olympic gold medalist rather than as a five-time World Cup giant slalom champion.
Secondly, the major championships are a different challenge compared to the World Cup tour. If you're dominating your sport, you don't need to bring out your best at every race to win World Cup titles. At the Olympics or Worlds, you can't win with mediocrity. Lara Gut is leading the super-G standings in the World Cup, yet 0.12 seconds separated her from the Olympic gold medal, eventually finishing fourth and missing the bronze medal by 0.01 seconds.
Seeing athletes with a big disparity between their World Cup and major championship achievements probably tells something about them. Peter Fill has only three wins on the World Cup tour, though he's won two titles in downhill and one in alpine combined. He doesn't finish in the front very often, though his consistency has won him World Cup titles. Though that's not how you succeed in major championships; Fill's medal record of one silver and one bronze in the Worlds is quite mediocre for one with three small crystal globes.
On the other hand, Mario Matt never won a crystal globe in the World Cup and finished only twice in the top three in the slalom standings, though his two World gold medals and one Olympic gold medal in the span of 13 years plus 15 race wins in the World Cup surely put him above some of the World Cup champions whose heyday lasted only a few years and who never broke into double digits in their victory count.
The Olympics and the Worlds don't present the greatest challenges in the sport to athletes. When the venues need to accommodate men's and women's races in different disciplines, not all major championship slopes can be among the most challenging ones in the sport. The challenge to the athletes isn't even that high on the list of priorities when commercial interests play a big role when selecting the host venue. The Olympics may have the most important single races for the athletes but the Jeongseon downhill course doesn't reflect that, being among the easiest in top-level ski racing.
I am one of those who put winning the Hahnenkamm downhill at least on the level of an Olympic or World gold medal if not even above. That race is the biggest challenge in alpine skiing. A major gold medal doesn't prove you as a skier the way winning on the Streif does. A flawless and fast run on an easy course can win you a gold medal but you may be struggling with the challenges the most challenging courses present. And Hahnenkamm matters to skiers; that's where every downhill skier wants to win.
Didier Cuche won four World Cup titles in downhill plus one in super-G and one in giant slalom between 2007 and 2011. Still his medal record isn't that exceptional; one gold, two silver, and one bronze medal in the Worlds and an Olympic silver medal dating back to 1998. However his four wins on the Streif between 2008 and 2012 show why he was the best downhill skier of that era. You could beat him on easier courses, like Wengen where he never won, though he dominated the most challenging courses.
It's difficult, or rather impossible, to put achievements in any absolute order. I'm one who puts World Cup titles above gold medals, though you need to look at the bigger picture. Sports are about winning; achieving World Cup titles purely with consistency and never succeeding big time at major championships isn't that impressive while a great medal record can make up the lack of crystal globes. Elisabeth Görgl never won a World Cup title, though has a solid medal record from 2009 to 2011 and her double gold medal at the 2011 Worlds shows that success wasn't a fluke. That puts her above some of the weaker World Cup champions in my eyes.
I truly admire Marc Girardelli's career. Five overall titles in the World Cup, two discipline titles in downhill, one in giant slalom, three in slalom, three times the runner-up in super-G, and four times topping the combined standings. That's accompanied by 11 World Championship medals from all five disciplines, including three gold medals in combined and one in slalom plus he's one of the rare skiers to win the downhills in Kitzbühel and Wengen the same season, winning actually two downhill races in Wengen in 1989. But he never won the gold medal at the Olympics, achieving only the silver medals in super-G and giant slalom in 1992. However, the lack of Olympic gold doesn't affect to my impression of his career. The sport is about more than two weeks every four years.
It's the same in other ski sports too. Janne Ahonen is a two-time World Cup overall champion in ski jumping and the five Four Hills titles stand out the most from his resume. In addition to that his medal record features two individual World gold medals, though he's never won at the Olympics or even achieved an individual medal. Still, his achievements show he can deliver under pressure. If anything, the Four Hills titles have required the same abilities than any major gold medal but also consistency. One single bad day can ruin your Four Hills campaign, at the Olympics or Worlds there's still another competition. However needing to have consistency for one week prevents the kind of flukish wins you can see at the Olympics or Worlds. Yes, even Thomas Diethart wasn't a fluke but the best ski jumper in the world for one week.
There's been criticism over Kaisa Mäkäräinen's performance in biathlon in PyeongChang where she failed once again to win an Olympic medal. Some of the criticism is justified. The best result of a 10th place isn't really what you'd expect from the World Cup leader. But never winning an Olympic medal isn't really such a big failure in the big picture of her career. She's won two World Cup overall titles, five discipline titles, a World gold medal, and a total of six medals at the Worlds. If I had to point out a failure from her resume, it's winning only one major gold medal despite all her World Cup success. An Olympic gold medal would have fixed that, a silver or bronze medal wouldn't have. But who am I to blame one of the top biathletes of this decade?
Showing posts with label alpine skiing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alpine skiing. Show all posts
Monday, February 19, 2018
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
FIS let the speed specialists down in combined. Once again
Men's alpine combined finally started the alpine skiing events at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Although it was a close fight between Marcel Hirscher and Alexis Pinturault for the win with the six-time World Cup overall champion Hirscher claiming his first Olympic gold medal by 0.23 seconds, the race was a controversial one with the shortened downhill preventing the speed specialists building enough gap for the slalom leg to race for the victory.
The heavy wind had obviously made it necessary to lower the downhill start and use a racing line bypassing the biggest jumps of the course. The Jeongseon downhill course is already a short one with a run of one minute, 40 seconds; using the super-G start shortened it by further 20 seconds and bypassing the big jumps made it easier for less routined downhill skiers. Yet this is where the logic of the International Ski Federation fails, and this was not the first time. Despite the shortened downhill, the slalom leg was on a full course. This very much handed the medals to slalom specialists. The top six of the race were also the six fastest men on the slalom course.
I'm not sure the top two would've been any different with a full downhill course. Alexis Pinturault was 1.04 seconds and Marcel Hirscher 1.32 seconds behind Thomas Dreßen, the leader after the downhill leg. With downhill specialists losing over three seconds in the slalom leg, they might not have been able to build enough lead even on the full downhill course. Of course, it appeared the wind conditions were affecting the downhill with those starting among the first 10, like Dreßen, Hirscher, and Pinturault, being favored by their starting position.
However, the shortened downhill may still have decided the victory. While Pinturault is better in slalom than downhill, he can finish the downhill leg even on a full course close enough the leaders to overtake them in the slalom. His strength against Hirscher is the downhill. On a full course, he might have been able to build enough gap to Hirscher to stay ahead in the slalom leg.
This was not the first farcical alpine combined at major championships. Last two men's combined races at the World Championships have been won by the 30th skiers of the downhill leg who were able to benefit greatly from being the first skiers on the slalom leg in warm conditions with the course deteriorating rapidly. The Olympic combined could have been different with the slalom course holding up well in the cold Korean weather. A pity it was ruined by a shortened downhill.
I'm not the first to cry about unfair conditions. It's unfortunate for the fans who have come to watch a race to see it canceled. If this had been a regular World Cup race, I'd have been fine with it; do whatever you need to get the race safely carried out. But when it's the highlight of the year, or four years in the case of the Olympics, the athletes deserve a fair race.
I don't think the downhill leg should have taken place as scheduled with the wind affecting the results. They could have started with the slalom leg as scheduled and have the downhill leg another day like has happened before in similar situations. That would actually have been even fairer as the slalom specialists barely making the top 30 in the downhill, like the bronze medalist Victor Muffat-Jeandet, wouldn't get such a big advantage from their starting position. And even if starting with a shortened downhill was the right decision, the slalom leg should have been shortened respectively.
The FIS clearly has a strange view about what is a fair race. The combined format has some major flaws, yet the FIS has done nothing to fix those issues. At least there won't be many farces like this remaining as the alpine combined will likely be gone by the 2021 World Championships. Though it's a pity because it could be a great event. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of examples of how the FIS fails to provide a level playing field for the speed specialists against the technicians.
The men's World Cup has been dominated by technical specialists this decade. After the speed specialist Carlo Janka won the 2010 overall title, technical specialists have claimed the big crystal globe with Ivica Kostelić winning in 2011 and Marcel Hirscher every season since 2012.
The World Cup schedule has more races in technical disciplines than in speed ones. That's nothing new, although the introduction of parallel races has added to the number of technical races. Yet what is different is the evolution of giant slalom. Speed specialists used to have success also in giant slalom, boosting their overall title campaigns. Benjamin Raich in 2006 was the only speed specialist winning the overall title in the 00s. Yet ever since the the GS equipment changed from the 28-meter radius skis to longer 35-meter radius skis in the 2012-13 season, speed specialists have been struggling in that discipline, hurting their overall title chances.
The radius of GS skis was shortened to 30 meters starting from this season. Although the equipment is now closer to the old skis, it seems like the speed specialists are still no longer able to succeed in giant slalom. That is very harmful for their chances for the big crystal globe as meanwhile there are technical specialists like Hirscher or Pinturault who can even win in super-G on some of the more technical courses. When you see a World Cup champion like Aksel Lund Svindal and another Olympic medalist Kjetil Jansrud struggling to make the second round in giant slalom, you know the discipline is different than what it was in their heyday in giant slalom.
With speed specialists no longer succeeding in giant slalom, the only way to give them an equal chance to race for the overall title would seem to be adding speed races into the schedule. An equal number of races in each discipline should be the priority of scheduling, or at least an equal number between speed and technical disciplines. It can't be so difficult. At least the long-term calendar for the 2020-21 season seems better in that regard for men, although the parallel races still skew the schedule in favor of technical specialists.
It's not only the scheduling but also the replacement policy. Last season one of the scheduled men's downhill races ended up being permanently canceled. The schedule should leave enough space for replacement dates because every canceled race is one less scoring opportunity for the specialists in that discipline. And with the speed disciplines more prone to weather-related cancellations, that's yet another factor against speed specialists overall title hopes.
What's even worse is the replacement policy at the World Cup Finals, leading to some farcical season finales. In 2013 the speed races had to be canceled at the Finals in Lenzerheide, denying Aksel Lund Svindal his last opportunity to challenge Marcel Hirscher for the overall title while securing the downhill title without having to race for it. In 2011, also in Lenzerheide, Maria Riesch (now Höfl-Riesch) celebrated her only World Cup overall title by three points over Lindsey Vonn after the season-ending giant slalom was canceled, a discipline where Vonn had the advantage over Riesch.
In both cases, and many others, the final races were not rescheduled because the FIS rules don't allow it. I get it, the TV channels want the titles being decided in Sunday's technical races and there are probably some logistical issues as well. But a cancellation is an unfortunate way to decide the crystal globe. I'm sure the fans would rather have the titles decided by racing, even if they missed it when at work on Monday as a cancellation means they didn't see racing anyway. They don't tune in to see the trophy presented, they tune in to see the skiers racing for the trophy.
I'm not sure what it takes for the FIS to realize the speed specialists are at a disadvantage in the overall title hunt and make it a level playing field between speed and technical specialists. It's a pity that those speed specialists, not only risking their health but even their lives, are constantly being put at a disadvantage by the sanctioning body. The FIS failed to provide a fair race for the Olympic medals in men's combined but that's just one more example of how the FIS lets the weather ruin speed specialists' chances for success.
The Austrian Ski Federation is usually vocal when things don't go their way. Maybe things would start happening if there was a big star in the Austrian speed team. But as long as Austria's biggest star is a technical specialist, the current situation is fine for the ÖSV.
The heavy wind had obviously made it necessary to lower the downhill start and use a racing line bypassing the biggest jumps of the course. The Jeongseon downhill course is already a short one with a run of one minute, 40 seconds; using the super-G start shortened it by further 20 seconds and bypassing the big jumps made it easier for less routined downhill skiers. Yet this is where the logic of the International Ski Federation fails, and this was not the first time. Despite the shortened downhill, the slalom leg was on a full course. This very much handed the medals to slalom specialists. The top six of the race were also the six fastest men on the slalom course.
I'm not sure the top two would've been any different with a full downhill course. Alexis Pinturault was 1.04 seconds and Marcel Hirscher 1.32 seconds behind Thomas Dreßen, the leader after the downhill leg. With downhill specialists losing over three seconds in the slalom leg, they might not have been able to build enough lead even on the full downhill course. Of course, it appeared the wind conditions were affecting the downhill with those starting among the first 10, like Dreßen, Hirscher, and Pinturault, being favored by their starting position.
However, the shortened downhill may still have decided the victory. While Pinturault is better in slalom than downhill, he can finish the downhill leg even on a full course close enough the leaders to overtake them in the slalom. His strength against Hirscher is the downhill. On a full course, he might have been able to build enough gap to Hirscher to stay ahead in the slalom leg.
This was not the first farcical alpine combined at major championships. Last two men's combined races at the World Championships have been won by the 30th skiers of the downhill leg who were able to benefit greatly from being the first skiers on the slalom leg in warm conditions with the course deteriorating rapidly. The Olympic combined could have been different with the slalom course holding up well in the cold Korean weather. A pity it was ruined by a shortened downhill.
I'm not the first to cry about unfair conditions. It's unfortunate for the fans who have come to watch a race to see it canceled. If this had been a regular World Cup race, I'd have been fine with it; do whatever you need to get the race safely carried out. But when it's the highlight of the year, or four years in the case of the Olympics, the athletes deserve a fair race.
I don't think the downhill leg should have taken place as scheduled with the wind affecting the results. They could have started with the slalom leg as scheduled and have the downhill leg another day like has happened before in similar situations. That would actually have been even fairer as the slalom specialists barely making the top 30 in the downhill, like the bronze medalist Victor Muffat-Jeandet, wouldn't get such a big advantage from their starting position. And even if starting with a shortened downhill was the right decision, the slalom leg should have been shortened respectively.
The FIS clearly has a strange view about what is a fair race. The combined format has some major flaws, yet the FIS has done nothing to fix those issues. At least there won't be many farces like this remaining as the alpine combined will likely be gone by the 2021 World Championships. Though it's a pity because it could be a great event. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of examples of how the FIS fails to provide a level playing field for the speed specialists against the technicians.
World Cup skewed in favor of technical specialists
The men's World Cup has been dominated by technical specialists this decade. After the speed specialist Carlo Janka won the 2010 overall title, technical specialists have claimed the big crystal globe with Ivica Kostelić winning in 2011 and Marcel Hirscher every season since 2012.
The World Cup schedule has more races in technical disciplines than in speed ones. That's nothing new, although the introduction of parallel races has added to the number of technical races. Yet what is different is the evolution of giant slalom. Speed specialists used to have success also in giant slalom, boosting their overall title campaigns. Benjamin Raich in 2006 was the only speed specialist winning the overall title in the 00s. Yet ever since the the GS equipment changed from the 28-meter radius skis to longer 35-meter radius skis in the 2012-13 season, speed specialists have been struggling in that discipline, hurting their overall title chances.
The radius of GS skis was shortened to 30 meters starting from this season. Although the equipment is now closer to the old skis, it seems like the speed specialists are still no longer able to succeed in giant slalom. That is very harmful for their chances for the big crystal globe as meanwhile there are technical specialists like Hirscher or Pinturault who can even win in super-G on some of the more technical courses. When you see a World Cup champion like Aksel Lund Svindal and another Olympic medalist Kjetil Jansrud struggling to make the second round in giant slalom, you know the discipline is different than what it was in their heyday in giant slalom.
With speed specialists no longer succeeding in giant slalom, the only way to give them an equal chance to race for the overall title would seem to be adding speed races into the schedule. An equal number of races in each discipline should be the priority of scheduling, or at least an equal number between speed and technical disciplines. It can't be so difficult. At least the long-term calendar for the 2020-21 season seems better in that regard for men, although the parallel races still skew the schedule in favor of technical specialists.
It's not only the scheduling but also the replacement policy. Last season one of the scheduled men's downhill races ended up being permanently canceled. The schedule should leave enough space for replacement dates because every canceled race is one less scoring opportunity for the specialists in that discipline. And with the speed disciplines more prone to weather-related cancellations, that's yet another factor against speed specialists overall title hopes.
What's even worse is the replacement policy at the World Cup Finals, leading to some farcical season finales. In 2013 the speed races had to be canceled at the Finals in Lenzerheide, denying Aksel Lund Svindal his last opportunity to challenge Marcel Hirscher for the overall title while securing the downhill title without having to race for it. In 2011, also in Lenzerheide, Maria Riesch (now Höfl-Riesch) celebrated her only World Cup overall title by three points over Lindsey Vonn after the season-ending giant slalom was canceled, a discipline where Vonn had the advantage over Riesch.
In both cases, and many others, the final races were not rescheduled because the FIS rules don't allow it. I get it, the TV channels want the titles being decided in Sunday's technical races and there are probably some logistical issues as well. But a cancellation is an unfortunate way to decide the crystal globe. I'm sure the fans would rather have the titles decided by racing, even if they missed it when at work on Monday as a cancellation means they didn't see racing anyway. They don't tune in to see the trophy presented, they tune in to see the skiers racing for the trophy.
I'm not sure what it takes for the FIS to realize the speed specialists are at a disadvantage in the overall title hunt and make it a level playing field between speed and technical specialists. It's a pity that those speed specialists, not only risking their health but even their lives, are constantly being put at a disadvantage by the sanctioning body. The FIS failed to provide a fair race for the Olympic medals in men's combined but that's just one more example of how the FIS lets the weather ruin speed specialists' chances for success.
The Austrian Ski Federation is usually vocal when things don't go their way. Maybe things would start happening if there was a big star in the Austrian speed team. But as long as Austria's biggest star is a technical specialist, the current situation is fine for the ÖSV.
Friday, January 12, 2018
Does alpine combined have a future?
The future of alpine combined has been questioned several times this decade. With skiers specializing more and more in speed or technical disciplines, a discipline requiring all-round skills makes them less sense.
In theory, alpine combined is a great discipline, measuring the skiers' all-round skills. Speed and technical skills are well-balanced in the format of one downhill and one slalom run.
However, alpine combined is not in a good health. The risks of downhill are keeping some of the best technical skiers away from the discipline. The need to complete the downhill training runs before the combined races further discourages technical specialists to participate in combined when the schedule is already taxing. There have been combined races of super-G and slalom that don't require training runs, though that format is also less neutral, favoring technical specialists.
Alexis Pinturault gave up his hopes of winning the World Cup discipline title in combined in order to get time for training. Marcel Hirscher, world gold and silver medalist in the discipline, has competed only rarely in the discipline in the World Cup, mostly only when it's been a combined of super-G and slalom, requiring no training runs.
For speed specialists the barrier to enter combined races is lower. They need to participate in the training anyway for the downhill races. Combined gives them one more run to train for the downhill race and the risks are low in slalom. Still, despite speed specialists making up most of the field in combined races, those races often end up being won by a technical specialist.
The last two World Championship combined races have been won by Marcel Hirscher and Luca Aerni, both finishing 30th in the downhill leg and getting to start the slalom leg in conditions where the course deteriorated rapidly. The reversed starting order for the top 30 gives an advantage for those slalom specialists who finish the speed leg barely inside the top 30. Not only they are better slalom skiers than the speed specialists but they also get to have their run in the best conditions.
The combined race in Bormio in December was combined at its best. Alexis Pinturault, probably the best all-round skier in men's side, made big progress in slalom to win, though the conditions allowed also the best downhill skiers to challenge him. The second combined race of the winter in Wengen was more like combined at its worst. The winner Victor Muffat-Jeandet was 27th and the second-place Pavel Trikhichev 29th in the downhill leg, yet the best downhill skiers couldn't challenge them on the deteriorating slalom course.
The starting order wouldn't be such a big issue if there were well-capable slalom skiers in the top 10 of the downhill. If that was the case, winning from outside the top 20 would be almost impossible. The conditions wouldn't anymore change that much during the top ten and they would decide the victory. However, there are hardly any skiers on the men's tour who can score points in both downhill and slalom, let alone be top-10 contenders in both disciplines.
While the men's tour lacks all-round skiers, the women's tour has more all-round talent. The likes of Lindsey Vonn and Tina Maze are recent examples of skiers winning races in all disciplines. This season Mikaela Shiffrin became the latest skier to have won World Cup races in both slalom and downhill, as well as in giant slalom and combined. Michelle Gisin is another young skier who has shown skills both in speed and technical disciplines, making her a strong combined skier.
If men's combined comes down to who is least bad in his worse discipline, women's combined is more about who is the best in two disciplines like it should be. If you barely make the top 30 in the downhill leg, you probably can't win a women's combined, there's enough slalom talent in the downhill top 10. With hardly any all-round skiers on the men's tour, it's justifiable to question the existence of alpine combined. Yet the all-round talent on the women's tour justifies its existence.
The future of alpine combined has often been questioned this decade. I think it belongs to the World Championships and the Olympics, just like decathlon and heptathlon in athletics. The Worlds and the Olympics have no overall winner, the combined winner is closest to that.
Another thing is if combined should be featured in the World Cup and if it should have a crystal globe.
The World Cup already has an award for all-round skills, it's the overall crystal globe. However, the overall standings rather favor specializing and succeeding in two disciplines rather than consistent scoring in three or four. Alexis Pinturault is probably the best all-round skier on the men's tour, having finished on top of the combined standings four times in the five previous seasons. Yet he has never finished higher than third in the overall standings.
If there were more combined races in the schedule, it might encourage skiers to improve their all-round skills. With more combined races, there would be more races awarding points towards the overall title. Then again, there was an increase in the number of combined races when the current super combined format was introduced, yet most skiers concentrated on speed or technical disciplines with little focus on combined. And without true all-round skiers, combined isn't very attractive.
As for the discipline title in combined, I think it could make sense if there were more combined races, like at least five. It would reward all-round skills more than the overall title does. But right now with two races it doesn't make sense, as shown by Pinturault prioritizing training over racing for the title.
I wouldn't like combined to disappear completely. It can still provide some great races, more commonly on women's side. Though I'm afraid the sport is going into that direction. The FIS is pushing for more parallel races and you can't expand the schedule endlessly. I wouldn't be surprised to see alpine combined replaced by a parallel race at the Worlds and the Olympics in the future.
In theory, alpine combined is a great discipline, measuring the skiers' all-round skills. Speed and technical skills are well-balanced in the format of one downhill and one slalom run.
However, alpine combined is not in a good health. The risks of downhill are keeping some of the best technical skiers away from the discipline. The need to complete the downhill training runs before the combined races further discourages technical specialists to participate in combined when the schedule is already taxing. There have been combined races of super-G and slalom that don't require training runs, though that format is also less neutral, favoring technical specialists.
Alexis Pinturault gave up his hopes of winning the World Cup discipline title in combined in order to get time for training. Marcel Hirscher, world gold and silver medalist in the discipline, has competed only rarely in the discipline in the World Cup, mostly only when it's been a combined of super-G and slalom, requiring no training runs.
For speed specialists the barrier to enter combined races is lower. They need to participate in the training anyway for the downhill races. Combined gives them one more run to train for the downhill race and the risks are low in slalom. Still, despite speed specialists making up most of the field in combined races, those races often end up being won by a technical specialist.
The last two World Championship combined races have been won by Marcel Hirscher and Luca Aerni, both finishing 30th in the downhill leg and getting to start the slalom leg in conditions where the course deteriorated rapidly. The reversed starting order for the top 30 gives an advantage for those slalom specialists who finish the speed leg barely inside the top 30. Not only they are better slalom skiers than the speed specialists but they also get to have their run in the best conditions.
The combined race in Bormio in December was combined at its best. Alexis Pinturault, probably the best all-round skier in men's side, made big progress in slalom to win, though the conditions allowed also the best downhill skiers to challenge him. The second combined race of the winter in Wengen was more like combined at its worst. The winner Victor Muffat-Jeandet was 27th and the second-place Pavel Trikhichev 29th in the downhill leg, yet the best downhill skiers couldn't challenge them on the deteriorating slalom course.
The starting order wouldn't be such a big issue if there were well-capable slalom skiers in the top 10 of the downhill. If that was the case, winning from outside the top 20 would be almost impossible. The conditions wouldn't anymore change that much during the top ten and they would decide the victory. However, there are hardly any skiers on the men's tour who can score points in both downhill and slalom, let alone be top-10 contenders in both disciplines.
All-round talent in women's side justifies combined
While the men's tour lacks all-round skiers, the women's tour has more all-round talent. The likes of Lindsey Vonn and Tina Maze are recent examples of skiers winning races in all disciplines. This season Mikaela Shiffrin became the latest skier to have won World Cup races in both slalom and downhill, as well as in giant slalom and combined. Michelle Gisin is another young skier who has shown skills both in speed and technical disciplines, making her a strong combined skier.
If men's combined comes down to who is least bad in his worse discipline, women's combined is more about who is the best in two disciplines like it should be. If you barely make the top 30 in the downhill leg, you probably can't win a women's combined, there's enough slalom talent in the downhill top 10. With hardly any all-round skiers on the men's tour, it's justifiable to question the existence of alpine combined. Yet the all-round talent on the women's tour justifies its existence.
Should combined stay in the schedule?
The future of alpine combined has often been questioned this decade. I think it belongs to the World Championships and the Olympics, just like decathlon and heptathlon in athletics. The Worlds and the Olympics have no overall winner, the combined winner is closest to that.
Another thing is if combined should be featured in the World Cup and if it should have a crystal globe.
The World Cup already has an award for all-round skills, it's the overall crystal globe. However, the overall standings rather favor specializing and succeeding in two disciplines rather than consistent scoring in three or four. Alexis Pinturault is probably the best all-round skier on the men's tour, having finished on top of the combined standings four times in the five previous seasons. Yet he has never finished higher than third in the overall standings.
If there were more combined races in the schedule, it might encourage skiers to improve their all-round skills. With more combined races, there would be more races awarding points towards the overall title. Then again, there was an increase in the number of combined races when the current super combined format was introduced, yet most skiers concentrated on speed or technical disciplines with little focus on combined. And without true all-round skiers, combined isn't very attractive.
As for the discipline title in combined, I think it could make sense if there were more combined races, like at least five. It would reward all-round skills more than the overall title does. But right now with two races it doesn't make sense, as shown by Pinturault prioritizing training over racing for the title.
I wouldn't like combined to disappear completely. It can still provide some great races, more commonly on women's side. Though I'm afraid the sport is going into that direction. The FIS is pushing for more parallel races and you can't expand the schedule endlessly. I wouldn't be surprised to see alpine combined replaced by a parallel race at the Worlds and the Olympics in the future.
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Is it Hirscher vs. Kristoffersen for the Ski World Cup overall title?
11 races into the 2017-18 Alpine Skiing World Cup season, the Austrian Marcel Hirscher has returned from an ankle injury to lead the overall standings. The six-time World Cup overall champion broke his left ankle in a training accident in mid-August and he wasn't initially expected to return before December, putting his title defense in jeopardy. However, he returned already in early November at Levi, and thanks to the cancellation of the opening GS in Sölden, he didn't miss a race.
After a short preparation, Hirscher was only 17th in the slalom at Levi, though his four starts since then, he has achieved three wins and a third place. Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, another skier returning from an injury, shares the overall lead with Hirscher. However, the rest of the season is more favorable for the technical specialist Hirscher with eight slalom and five giant slalom races remaining as opposed to six downhill and three super-G races remaining in the speed disciplines. Besides there will be three parallel races and two combined races.
The remaining schedule makes it difficult for Svindal to match Hirscher. It seems like the Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen, currently nine points behind the leaders, will be Hirscher's biggest rival. The table below shows the projected final points based on the average points scores in each discipline so far this season.
The table excludes the parallel races because of their unpredictable nature. Combined is excluded because no races in the discipline have taken place so far this season. Also, that is the projected points for the current top 10; skiers from outside might be inside the top 10 in the projected points, though hardly contend for the top positions.
The projected points show an advantage for Kristoffersen in the overall title race against Hirscher. However, there are many factors making Hirscher the favorite. Hirscher's 14th place at Levi brings down his average score in slalom; last season his worst result was a sixth place as he finished all other races in the top four.
That doesn't mean Kristoffersen can't outscore him in slalom. Kristoffersen won the 2015-16 slalom title ahead of Hirscher and won five slalom races last season as opposed to Hirscher winning only two. Though Hirscher is ahead of Kristoffersen in consistency. Besides, Hirscher is the better parallel racer, which may be decisive in this rivalry.
Although a win is missing so far this season, Kristoffersen is probably having his best season in GS. It's not easy to beat Hirscher in GS, though Kristoffersen can beat anybody else in GS. So far Kristoffersen has two second places and a fifth place. He needs to keep up his GS form to stay within a striking distance from Hirscher.
Kristoffersen needs to continue his good performances in GS and produce a season similar to 2015-16 in slalom to contend for the big crystal globe against Hirscher. That being said, Hirscher's consistently great performances are hard to match over the full season. Hirscher also has the benefit of being able to score points in super-G and combined, although he hasn't raced in super-G so far this season, probably as a precaution after the injury break. I'd expect to see him in some super-G races later this season if the title race requires it. On the other hand, Hirscher has never raced on the Bormio and Wengen downhill courses so he may not start in any combined race in this winter's World Cup.
If Hirscher stays fit, he's the favorite to win his seventh consecutive World Cup overall title. But I don't completely rule out Kristoffersen beating him if Kristoffersen can produce the best season of his career.
The two-time World Cup overall champion Aksel Lund Svindal shares the lead with Hirscher, though it seems like this season will follow the familiar storyline. The early season has had one speed race more than technical races and he's leading the overall standings, though he can't keep up with Hirscher as the remainder of the season will have four more technical races plus the three parallel races.
Svindal has had a great start for his campaign in downhill with a third place followed by two wins. His super-G hasn't been up there yet; despite top-10 finishes in all three races so far, he's yet to make the podium in super-G.
Two-time overall runner-up Kjetil Jansrud has usually had the same storyline in his seasons as the countryman Svindal. Once the season gets more tech-favoring, Jansrud's overall title challenge has dried up.
Jansrud is leading the super-G standings with a win and a second place from the North American races, though he also missed the points with his 35th-place finish in Val Gardena. Downhill has been less successful for the last season's downhill runner-up Jansrud, though his first podium with the second place in Val Gardena promoted him into third place in the discipline standings.
What Svindal and Jansrud need to keep their overall title campaign alive is strong results in both speed disciplines. And even then, the lack of good giant slalom results keeps them out of the title contention in the tech-favoring remainder of the season. Speed specialists who won the overall title traditionally had success also in GS, for example Svindal won the GS title on his way to the 2007 overall title. However, Svindal hasn't started in GS this season following his knee injuries while the 2010 Olympic silver medalist Jansrud has not qualified for the second run in his two GS starts this season.
The 2016 World Cup super-G champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde might be the best candidate to end Ivica Kostelić and Marcel Hirscher's streak of seven overall titles for technical specialists since he's shown most promise of speed specialists in giant slalom in last seasons. He was able to score some points with the 26th place in the Beaver Creek GS, though didn't make the second run in Alta Badia. The new GS skis, closer to the pre-2012-spec skis, have not boosted speed specialists' GS performances as much as one might have hoped. That being said, sixth in the super-G and 15th in the downhill standings this season is not good enough for Kilde to contend for the overall title.
The Frenchman Alexis Pinturault may be the best all-round skier in the World Cup at the moment, as shown by wins in all disciplines but downhill and by finishing on top of the combined standings four times in the last five seasons. However, giant slalom is the only discipline where he's an absolute top contender and he's lacked the kind of consistency the likes of Hirscher, Svindal, and Jansrud have showed.
Although Pinturault has shown skills to match Hirscher's performances in giant slalom in last two seasons, inconsistency over the season has kept him from contending for the GS title. That seems to be the case also this season. He achieved an impressive victory in Val-d'Isère, though ninth and 12th places from the other races aren't enough to contend for the discipline title and also cost him in the overall title battle.
Pinturault can be a winner on a good day also in slalom and super-G, however he is very inconsistent in those disciplines. He finished as high as fifth in the Beaver Creek super-G, though he was only 27th in his other super-G start in Val Gardena. Pinturault started his slalom season with a promising eighth place at Levi and he was ninth after the first run in Val-d'Isère but didn't finish the second run.
Pinturault may be the best all-round skier in the World Cup, though the points system rewards finishing high in races. Pinturault needs another discipline where he's a frontrunner. Slalom offers better chances for him to score points. It's still a better discipline than super-G for him. Besides, slalom races outnumber super-G races by ten to six.
142 points may not be a totally impossible gap at this point of the season. Pinturault can score good points in the combined and parallel races, though he'd need to start beating Hirscher and Kristoffersen in slalom and giant slalom, which is a big task. To contend for the overall title in the future, he needs more consistency, and he needs to reach his maximum in slalom consistently to score high points.
After a short preparation, Hirscher was only 17th in the slalom at Levi, though his four starts since then, he has achieved three wins and a third place. Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal, another skier returning from an injury, shares the overall lead with Hirscher. However, the rest of the season is more favorable for the technical specialist Hirscher with eight slalom and five giant slalom races remaining as opposed to six downhill and three super-G races remaining in the speed disciplines. Besides there will be three parallel races and two combined races.
The remaining schedule makes it difficult for Svindal to match Hirscher. It seems like the Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen, currently nine points behind the leaders, will be Hirscher's biggest rival. The table below shows the projected final points based on the average points scores in each discipline so far this season.
 |
| Parallel and combined races not included. |
The table excludes the parallel races because of their unpredictable nature. Combined is excluded because no races in the discipline have taken place so far this season. Also, that is the projected points for the current top 10; skiers from outside might be inside the top 10 in the projected points, though hardly contend for the top positions.
History on Hirscher's side vs. Kristoffersen
The projected points show an advantage for Kristoffersen in the overall title race against Hirscher. However, there are many factors making Hirscher the favorite. Hirscher's 14th place at Levi brings down his average score in slalom; last season his worst result was a sixth place as he finished all other races in the top four.
That doesn't mean Kristoffersen can't outscore him in slalom. Kristoffersen won the 2015-16 slalom title ahead of Hirscher and won five slalom races last season as opposed to Hirscher winning only two. Though Hirscher is ahead of Kristoffersen in consistency. Besides, Hirscher is the better parallel racer, which may be decisive in this rivalry.
Although a win is missing so far this season, Kristoffersen is probably having his best season in GS. It's not easy to beat Hirscher in GS, though Kristoffersen can beat anybody else in GS. So far Kristoffersen has two second places and a fifth place. He needs to keep up his GS form to stay within a striking distance from Hirscher.
Kristoffersen needs to continue his good performances in GS and produce a season similar to 2015-16 in slalom to contend for the big crystal globe against Hirscher. That being said, Hirscher's consistently great performances are hard to match over the full season. Hirscher also has the benefit of being able to score points in super-G and combined, although he hasn't raced in super-G so far this season, probably as a precaution after the injury break. I'd expect to see him in some super-G races later this season if the title race requires it. On the other hand, Hirscher has never raced on the Bormio and Wengen downhill courses so he may not start in any combined race in this winter's World Cup.
If Hirscher stays fit, he's the favorite to win his seventh consecutive World Cup overall title. But I don't completely rule out Kristoffersen beating him if Kristoffersen can produce the best season of his career.
Speed specialists lack good giant slalom results
The two-time World Cup overall champion Aksel Lund Svindal shares the lead with Hirscher, though it seems like this season will follow the familiar storyline. The early season has had one speed race more than technical races and he's leading the overall standings, though he can't keep up with Hirscher as the remainder of the season will have four more technical races plus the three parallel races.
Svindal has had a great start for his campaign in downhill with a third place followed by two wins. His super-G hasn't been up there yet; despite top-10 finishes in all three races so far, he's yet to make the podium in super-G.
Two-time overall runner-up Kjetil Jansrud has usually had the same storyline in his seasons as the countryman Svindal. Once the season gets more tech-favoring, Jansrud's overall title challenge has dried up.
Jansrud is leading the super-G standings with a win and a second place from the North American races, though he also missed the points with his 35th-place finish in Val Gardena. Downhill has been less successful for the last season's downhill runner-up Jansrud, though his first podium with the second place in Val Gardena promoted him into third place in the discipline standings.
What Svindal and Jansrud need to keep their overall title campaign alive is strong results in both speed disciplines. And even then, the lack of good giant slalom results keeps them out of the title contention in the tech-favoring remainder of the season. Speed specialists who won the overall title traditionally had success also in GS, for example Svindal won the GS title on his way to the 2007 overall title. However, Svindal hasn't started in GS this season following his knee injuries while the 2010 Olympic silver medalist Jansrud has not qualified for the second run in his two GS starts this season.
The 2016 World Cup super-G champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde might be the best candidate to end Ivica Kostelić and Marcel Hirscher's streak of seven overall titles for technical specialists since he's shown most promise of speed specialists in giant slalom in last seasons. He was able to score some points with the 26th place in the Beaver Creek GS, though didn't make the second run in Alta Badia. The new GS skis, closer to the pre-2012-spec skis, have not boosted speed specialists' GS performances as much as one might have hoped. That being said, sixth in the super-G and 15th in the downhill standings this season is not good enough for Kilde to contend for the overall title.
Pinturault needs consistency and another strong discipline
The Frenchman Alexis Pinturault may be the best all-round skier in the World Cup at the moment, as shown by wins in all disciplines but downhill and by finishing on top of the combined standings four times in the last five seasons. However, giant slalom is the only discipline where he's an absolute top contender and he's lacked the kind of consistency the likes of Hirscher, Svindal, and Jansrud have showed.
Although Pinturault has shown skills to match Hirscher's performances in giant slalom in last two seasons, inconsistency over the season has kept him from contending for the GS title. That seems to be the case also this season. He achieved an impressive victory in Val-d'Isère, though ninth and 12th places from the other races aren't enough to contend for the discipline title and also cost him in the overall title battle.
Pinturault can be a winner on a good day also in slalom and super-G, however he is very inconsistent in those disciplines. He finished as high as fifth in the Beaver Creek super-G, though he was only 27th in his other super-G start in Val Gardena. Pinturault started his slalom season with a promising eighth place at Levi and he was ninth after the first run in Val-d'Isère but didn't finish the second run.
Pinturault may be the best all-round skier in the World Cup, though the points system rewards finishing high in races. Pinturault needs another discipline where he's a frontrunner. Slalom offers better chances for him to score points. It's still a better discipline than super-G for him. Besides, slalom races outnumber super-G races by ten to six.
142 points may not be a totally impossible gap at this point of the season. Pinturault can score good points in the combined and parallel races, though he'd need to start beating Hirscher and Kristoffersen in slalom and giant slalom, which is a big task. To contend for the overall title in the future, he needs more consistency, and he needs to reach his maximum in slalom consistently to score high points.
Friday, February 24, 2017
Radical changes proposed for the Alpine Skiing World Cup
The FIS race director Markus Waldner is suggesting some radical changes for the Alpine Skiing World Cup, as reported by skionline.ch. His ideas include finishing the season with the World Championships, removing super-G and adding sprint downhills, and increasing the number of the parallel races.
Having the World Championships once the World Cup has finished sounds sensible; Waldner compares it the domestic soccer leagues finishing before the FIFA World Cup. However, I can see two problems.
World Cup races in March are often harmed by warm temperature. Do we want to see the Worlds' medals decided in unfair conditions?
Secondly, what about the Olympic seasons or the seasons with no championships? The Olympics are usually in mid-February; would the World Cup season finish in early February then or continue past the Olympics? And in a non-championship season, would the World Cup season continue till mid-March like it currently does?
Finishing the season with the World Championships sounds cool but you can't have it every season. On the other hand, with the current schedule you have the World Cup Finals concluding every season, no matter if there were the Olympics or the Worlds or neither that season.
I don't get the point of Waldner's idea of dropping super-G altogether from the World Cup. The number of the speed races is already an issue, handicapping speed specialists in the overall standings against the technical specialists. Getting rid of super-G would only skew the schedule even more in favor of tech specialists, even though Waldner's suggested sprint downhills would balance it.
One of the ideas is also to have the technical races in weekdays to give more flexibility for the speed races in weekends. More scheduling flexibility is definitely needed as showcased by this season's downhill cancellations. Yet I'm not sure moving races to weekdays is a good idea unless you can have them as night races when people have come home from work.
Waldner is pushing for more parallel races since they are easy for the audience to understand, even if they aren't into ski racing. He is suggesting a crystal globe with four to five parallel races, which would end the criticized practice of counting them towards the slalom or giant slalom standings.
Personally I'm not a huge fan of the parallel races but obviously their reception has been mostly positive. No longer counting them towards slalom or parallel slalom standings would be an improvement since parallel races require somewhat different skills.
However, increasing the number of parallel races makes the schedule even more tech-favoring, even though speed specialists have occasionally had success in parallel races. What I think is the biggest problem of the Ski World Cup is the speed vs. tech disparity; Waldner's suggestions only seem to increase it.
World Championships after the World Cup?
Having the World Championships once the World Cup has finished sounds sensible; Waldner compares it the domestic soccer leagues finishing before the FIFA World Cup. However, I can see two problems.
World Cup races in March are often harmed by warm temperature. Do we want to see the Worlds' medals decided in unfair conditions?
Secondly, what about the Olympic seasons or the seasons with no championships? The Olympics are usually in mid-February; would the World Cup season finish in early February then or continue past the Olympics? And in a non-championship season, would the World Cup season continue till mid-March like it currently does?
Finishing the season with the World Championships sounds cool but you can't have it every season. On the other hand, with the current schedule you have the World Cup Finals concluding every season, no matter if there were the Olympics or the Worlds or neither that season.
The future of speed disciplines
I don't get the point of Waldner's idea of dropping super-G altogether from the World Cup. The number of the speed races is already an issue, handicapping speed specialists in the overall standings against the technical specialists. Getting rid of super-G would only skew the schedule even more in favor of tech specialists, even though Waldner's suggested sprint downhills would balance it.
One of the ideas is also to have the technical races in weekdays to give more flexibility for the speed races in weekends. More scheduling flexibility is definitely needed as showcased by this season's downhill cancellations. Yet I'm not sure moving races to weekdays is a good idea unless you can have them as night races when people have come home from work.
More parallel races
Waldner is pushing for more parallel races since they are easy for the audience to understand, even if they aren't into ski racing. He is suggesting a crystal globe with four to five parallel races, which would end the criticized practice of counting them towards the slalom or giant slalom standings.
Personally I'm not a huge fan of the parallel races but obviously their reception has been mostly positive. No longer counting them towards slalom or parallel slalom standings would be an improvement since parallel races require somewhat different skills.
However, increasing the number of parallel races makes the schedule even more tech-favoring, even though speed specialists have occasionally had success in parallel races. What I think is the biggest problem of the Ski World Cup is the speed vs. tech disparity; Waldner's suggestions only seem to increase it.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
How to balance the Alpine Skiing World Cup schedule?
Only two of the scheduled five men's downhill races so far have taken place this World Cup season, and it is unsure if all canceled races will get a replacement date. That has caused criticism of this season's schedule which was tech-favoring already before the downhill cancellations.
The men's schedule for this season features 15 speed races, nine in downhill and only six in super-G. In technical disciplines, there are 18 races, 10 in slalom and eight in giant slalom. In addition to that, there is one parallel race both in giant slalom and slalom, though parallel racing is almost a separate discipline. Of the two combined races, one had super-G and the other had downhill as the speed leg.
Women also have 15 speed races as opposed to 18 technical races, though the distribution is more even. There are eight races in downhill, seven in super-G, nine in giant slalom, and nine in slalom. Women have only one parallel race, that is in slalom. Of the three combined races, one has downhill as the speed leg, two have super-G.
Having a balanced schedule would be important to keep the overall title battle fair for both speed and tech specialists. To illustrate that, here's an example. If a tech specialist scores 60 points on average in those disciplines' races, he'll score 1080 points in the season. A speed specialist needs an average of 72 points per speed race for that. Or 77 if one race gets canceled without a replacement as it currently seems for men.
The schedules don't look much better for the next three seasons from that perspective. The women's schedules aren't that bad but the men's schedules schedules always have two or three races more in the technical side and parallel races are still more of technical races. Still, looking at those schedules, you could achieve well-balanced schedules with minimal changes.
Firstly, I'd exclude the parallel races that have increased the number of tech races in the World Cup. Those are not real slalom and giant slalom races so they shouldn't be included in the discipline standings either. I acknowledge their importance in attracting new audiences and you want to have the big names racing there. But the incentive should be something else than World Cup overall points; instead give a cash prize or even a separate crystal globe for parallel races.
Secondly, I'd drop the separate combined races from the schedule. You could use those days for speed races. If you still want to have combined races, you can have some downhill races followed by a slalom run to complete the alpine combined. Wengen would be the only exception; the long Lauberhorn course needs to be shortened for combined.
Now let's have a look into how the next seasons' schedules could be balanced.
This is the best-balanced schedule of the next three years and wouldn't really need any changes. If one slalom got canceled, just don't reschedule it, then you'll have eight races in all disciplines but combined.
This is similar to the current season, though with two changes you could balance the speed and tech races. Val d'Isère is a venue capable of hosting any discipline. Replace the slalom with a super-G there. Bormio (the Italian TBD venue) could increase the number of super-Gs to eight by replacing the alpine combined. That way you'd have a 9-8-8-9 distribution of races in the four disciplines.
This is the least balanced of the women's schedules in next three seasons. But still, you could achieve a 9-8-8-9 distribution by replacing two of the combined races with super-G races.
Once again men will have three more tech races compared to speed races. Though similarly to the previous season, by replacing the slalom of Val d'Isère and the combined of Bormio with super-G races, you could balance the schedule and get nine races in all four disciplines.
This schedule is easy to balance. Replace two combined races with super-G races and one combined race with a giant slalom. That way you'll get 10 races in all four disciplines.
You can get a 11-10-10-11 schedule and speed vs. tech balance by replacing the combined races of Bormio and Chamonix with super-G races.
I hope the FIS will pay more attention to the distribution of races between each discipline, to give both speed and tech specialists a fair chance to race for the overall title. The trouble in rescheduling the canceled downhill races shows also another problem of the current schedule; the ever-growing schedule is getting too full. For that reason, I wouldn't mind having less races than there currently are.
If balancing the schedule isn't an option, maybe alpine skiing should have a look at freestyle skiing. In the Freestyle World Cup where athletes usually compete only in one or two disciplines, the overall standings are the aggregate of the average points in each discipline.
Or to make it easier for fans, count only a certain number of races from each discipline into the overall standings, like six as that's the number of men's super-G races this and next season. That would still favor the disciplines with more races as you could afford some bad results, yet still it would be an improvement to the current situation.
The men's schedule for this season features 15 speed races, nine in downhill and only six in super-G. In technical disciplines, there are 18 races, 10 in slalom and eight in giant slalom. In addition to that, there is one parallel race both in giant slalom and slalom, though parallel racing is almost a separate discipline. Of the two combined races, one had super-G and the other had downhill as the speed leg.
Women also have 15 speed races as opposed to 18 technical races, though the distribution is more even. There are eight races in downhill, seven in super-G, nine in giant slalom, and nine in slalom. Women have only one parallel race, that is in slalom. Of the three combined races, one has downhill as the speed leg, two have super-G.
Having a balanced schedule would be important to keep the overall title battle fair for both speed and tech specialists. To illustrate that, here's an example. If a tech specialist scores 60 points on average in those disciplines' races, he'll score 1080 points in the season. A speed specialist needs an average of 72 points per speed race for that. Or 77 if one race gets canceled without a replacement as it currently seems for men.
The schedules don't look much better for the next three seasons from that perspective. The women's schedules aren't that bad but the men's schedules schedules always have two or three races more in the technical side and parallel races are still more of technical races. Still, looking at those schedules, you could achieve well-balanced schedules with minimal changes.
Firstly, I'd exclude the parallel races that have increased the number of tech races in the World Cup. Those are not real slalom and giant slalom races so they shouldn't be included in the discipline standings either. I acknowledge their importance in attracting new audiences and you want to have the big names racing there. But the incentive should be something else than World Cup overall points; instead give a cash prize or even a separate crystal globe for parallel races.
Secondly, I'd drop the separate combined races from the schedule. You could use those days for speed races. If you still want to have combined races, you can have some downhill races followed by a slalom run to complete the alpine combined. Wengen would be the only exception; the long Lauberhorn course needs to be shortened for combined.
Now let's have a look into how the next seasons' schedules could be balanced.
Women 2017-18 (DH: 8 races, SG: 8, GS: 8, SL: 9, AC: 3)
This is the best-balanced schedule of the next three years and wouldn't really need any changes. If one slalom got canceled, just don't reschedule it, then you'll have eight races in all disciplines but combined.
Men 2017-18 (DH: 9, SG: 6, GS: 8, SL: 10, AC: 2)
This is similar to the current season, though with two changes you could balance the speed and tech races. Val d'Isère is a venue capable of hosting any discipline. Replace the slalom with a super-G there. Bormio (the Italian TBD venue) could increase the number of super-Gs to eight by replacing the alpine combined. That way you'd have a 9-8-8-9 distribution of races in the four disciplines.
Women 2018-19 (DH: 9, SG: 6, GS: 8, SL: 9, AC: 3)
This is the least balanced of the women's schedules in next three seasons. But still, you could achieve a 9-8-8-9 distribution by replacing two of the combined races with super-G races.
Men 2018-19 (DH: 9, SG: 7, GS: 9, SL: 10, AC: 3)
Once again men will have three more tech races compared to speed races. Though similarly to the previous season, by replacing the slalom of Val d'Isère and the combined of Bormio with super-G races, you could balance the schedule and get nine races in all four disciplines.
Women 2019-20 (DH: 10, SG: 8, GS: 9, SL: 10, AC: 3)
This schedule is easy to balance. Replace two combined races with super-G races and one combined race with a giant slalom. That way you'll get 10 races in all four disciplines.
Men 2019-20 (DH: 11, SG: 8, GS: 10, SL: 11, AC: 3)
You can get a 11-10-10-11 schedule and speed vs. tech balance by replacing the combined races of Bormio and Chamonix with super-G races.
2020 and beyond
I hope the FIS will pay more attention to the distribution of races between each discipline, to give both speed and tech specialists a fair chance to race for the overall title. The trouble in rescheduling the canceled downhill races shows also another problem of the current schedule; the ever-growing schedule is getting too full. For that reason, I wouldn't mind having less races than there currently are.
An alternative for balancing speed vs. tech
If balancing the schedule isn't an option, maybe alpine skiing should have a look at freestyle skiing. In the Freestyle World Cup where athletes usually compete only in one or two disciplines, the overall standings are the aggregate of the average points in each discipline.
Or to make it easier for fans, count only a certain number of races from each discipline into the overall standings, like six as that's the number of men's super-G races this and next season. That would still favor the disciplines with more races as you could afford some bad results, yet still it would be an improvement to the current situation.
Friday, December 23, 2016
Hirscher pulling away from overall World Cup rivals
The five-time defending World Cup overall champion Marcel Hirscher has been as great as ever in pre-Christmas races of the 2016-17 season. Yet to miss a podium in a regular giant slalom or slalom, Hirscher leads the overall standings by 251 points to last two seasons' runners-up Kjetil Jansrud and Henrik Kristoffersen in tied second place. Besides that, Hirscher is leading the discipline standings in both slalom and giant slalom.
Hirscher claimed the giant slalom standings' lead from Alexis Pinturault as he won the season's fourth GS in Alta Badia, making it 33 consecutive top-six finishes in World Cup GS races. Despite a first-round loss in the following day's parallel giant slalom, he retained the red bib as his closest rivals Alexis Pinturault and Mathieu Faivre weren't classified higher than ninth and eighth, respectively.
After winning at Levi, Hirscher had an advantage of 100 points over the defending slalom champion Kristoffersen who was aside due to sponsorship conflicts. Yet in the following two slalom races, Kristoffersen has proved he's the man to beat in slalom also this season. With two victories, Kristoffersen has reduced the gap to 60 points. Yet to Hirscher's credit, he has been the only man to get even close to the reigning champion in slalom.
Given the consistency Hirscher is showing, Kjetil Jansrud's overall title campaign seems like an impossible task. Two super-G victories plus a victory and a 12th place in downhill by Jansrud is a great record in this season's speed races, yet speed disciplines are in minority to technical disciplines in the World Cup schedule. Jansrud competes also in giant slalom, yet he is still to score points in regular GS races this season. To make the overall title campaign even harder for Jansrud, Hirscher occasionally races in super-G, being even a podium contender at best.
This seems like the 2014-15 season for Jansrud again. He won't be able to beat Hirscher for the overall title but the discipline titles in super-G and downhill are the best he can achieve. After two victories, he already has 108 points of advantage over Dominik Paris in second place. Yet he lost the downhill leader's red bib to Aksel Lund Svindal by 18 points in the last race in Val Gardena as he was only 12th, ending his winning streak in this season's speed races.
Svindal was the dominant speed skier before his injuries in the past two seasons. Last season he was leading the downhill, super-G, and overall standings before sustaining a knee injury in a downhill crash in Kitzbühel. Although the recovery took time and limited Svindal's pre-season training, he is already in a great form. With third and second places in this season's downhill races, he is leading the discipline standings and one can expect him to get even better after the injury as the season progresses. The only time he has missed the podium in this season's speed races was in the Val Gardena super-G where he was in podium contention in split times but then missed a gate. He is 120 points behind the leader Jansrud in the super-G standings, which is a big gap with four races remaining.
Sharing the overall standings' second place is Jansrud's fellow Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen, last year's slalom champion and overall runner-up. While he is showing great form in slalom, giant slalom and a sponsorship dispute are hurting his overall campaign.
Missing the season's first slalom at Levi due to a sponsorship dispute, Kristoffersen had put himself in a difficult position, 100 points behind Hirscher in the slalom standings. Although he has beaten Hirscher for the victory in the following two slalom races, he is still 60 points down. For comparison, his winning margin over Hirscher last season was 31 points.
Skipping Levi was also a missed opportunity to score up to 100 points for his overall campaign. Kristoffersen's giant slalom also hasn't been good enough to challenge Hirscher; he is fourth in the GS standings, already 171 points behind Hirscher.
Hirscher's closest rival in the GS standings is Alexis Pinturault. After two victories and a third place in first three races, he was leading Hirscher by 20 points before costly crashing out in Alta Badia. With a victory, Hirscher took the lead by 80 points. In the Alta Badia parallel GS, Pinturault was classified ninth while Hirscher was only 18th, yet Hirscher still leads the GS standings by 64 points.
Although Pinturault has the potential for good results also in slalom and super-G, he is already 284 points behind Hirscher in the overall standings. He has had some good slalom runs this season but hasn't been able to have two great runs in the same race. At Levi, he was fourth-quickest in the second run, in Val d'Isère he was leading after the first run before going out in the second run, and in Madonna di Campiglio only Kristoffersen and Hirscher had quicker second runs. Still, seventh in Madonna was his best slalom result of the season and he is 12th in the slalom standings.
While the five-time World Cup giant slalom champion Ted Ligety is suffering from back problems, the usual GS frontrunners Hirscher and Pinturault have a new title rival. Mathieu Faivre achieved his maiden World Cup victory in the first giant slalom of Val d'Isère. He made the podium again two weeks later in Alta Badia where he was second to Hirscher. Yet two ninth places in regular GS races and the parallel GS's eighth place mean that he is trailing Hirscher by 73 points with four GS races remaining.
Hirscher claimed the giant slalom standings' lead from Alexis Pinturault as he won the season's fourth GS in Alta Badia, making it 33 consecutive top-six finishes in World Cup GS races. Despite a first-round loss in the following day's parallel giant slalom, he retained the red bib as his closest rivals Alexis Pinturault and Mathieu Faivre weren't classified higher than ninth and eighth, respectively.
After winning at Levi, Hirscher had an advantage of 100 points over the defending slalom champion Kristoffersen who was aside due to sponsorship conflicts. Yet in the following two slalom races, Kristoffersen has proved he's the man to beat in slalom also this season. With two victories, Kristoffersen has reduced the gap to 60 points. Yet to Hirscher's credit, he has been the only man to get even close to the reigning champion in slalom.
Given the consistency Hirscher is showing, Kjetil Jansrud's overall title campaign seems like an impossible task. Two super-G victories plus a victory and a 12th place in downhill by Jansrud is a great record in this season's speed races, yet speed disciplines are in minority to technical disciplines in the World Cup schedule. Jansrud competes also in giant slalom, yet he is still to score points in regular GS races this season. To make the overall title campaign even harder for Jansrud, Hirscher occasionally races in super-G, being even a podium contender at best.
This seems like the 2014-15 season for Jansrud again. He won't be able to beat Hirscher for the overall title but the discipline titles in super-G and downhill are the best he can achieve. After two victories, he already has 108 points of advantage over Dominik Paris in second place. Yet he lost the downhill leader's red bib to Aksel Lund Svindal by 18 points in the last race in Val Gardena as he was only 12th, ending his winning streak in this season's speed races.
Svindal was the dominant speed skier before his injuries in the past two seasons. Last season he was leading the downhill, super-G, and overall standings before sustaining a knee injury in a downhill crash in Kitzbühel. Although the recovery took time and limited Svindal's pre-season training, he is already in a great form. With third and second places in this season's downhill races, he is leading the discipline standings and one can expect him to get even better after the injury as the season progresses. The only time he has missed the podium in this season's speed races was in the Val Gardena super-G where he was in podium contention in split times but then missed a gate. He is 120 points behind the leader Jansrud in the super-G standings, which is a big gap with four races remaining.
Sharing the overall standings' second place is Jansrud's fellow Norwegian Henrik Kristoffersen, last year's slalom champion and overall runner-up. While he is showing great form in slalom, giant slalom and a sponsorship dispute are hurting his overall campaign.
Missing the season's first slalom at Levi due to a sponsorship dispute, Kristoffersen had put himself in a difficult position, 100 points behind Hirscher in the slalom standings. Although he has beaten Hirscher for the victory in the following two slalom races, he is still 60 points down. For comparison, his winning margin over Hirscher last season was 31 points.
Skipping Levi was also a missed opportunity to score up to 100 points for his overall campaign. Kristoffersen's giant slalom also hasn't been good enough to challenge Hirscher; he is fourth in the GS standings, already 171 points behind Hirscher.
Hirscher's closest rival in the GS standings is Alexis Pinturault. After two victories and a third place in first three races, he was leading Hirscher by 20 points before costly crashing out in Alta Badia. With a victory, Hirscher took the lead by 80 points. In the Alta Badia parallel GS, Pinturault was classified ninth while Hirscher was only 18th, yet Hirscher still leads the GS standings by 64 points.
Although Pinturault has the potential for good results also in slalom and super-G, he is already 284 points behind Hirscher in the overall standings. He has had some good slalom runs this season but hasn't been able to have two great runs in the same race. At Levi, he was fourth-quickest in the second run, in Val d'Isère he was leading after the first run before going out in the second run, and in Madonna di Campiglio only Kristoffersen and Hirscher had quicker second runs. Still, seventh in Madonna was his best slalom result of the season and he is 12th in the slalom standings.
While the five-time World Cup giant slalom champion Ted Ligety is suffering from back problems, the usual GS frontrunners Hirscher and Pinturault have a new title rival. Mathieu Faivre achieved his maiden World Cup victory in the first giant slalom of Val d'Isère. He made the podium again two weeks later in Alta Badia where he was second to Hirscher. Yet two ninth places in regular GS races and the parallel GS's eighth place mean that he is trailing Hirscher by 73 points with four GS races remaining.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Four ladies pulling away in Ski World Cup
Mikaela Shiffrin leads the Alpine Skiing World Cup overall standings when going into the Christmas break, yet Lara Gut, Ilka Štuhec, and Sofia Goggia are within only 31 points from her. Tina Weirather in fifth place is already trailing by 171 points.
Shiffrin and Gut were the overall title favorites in the absence of Anna Veith and Lindsey Vonn. Gut is a frontrunner in downhill, super-G, and giant slalom, as well as in alpine combined. Shiffrin is a frontrunner only in slalom and giant slalom, yet her consistently great slalom performances and a tech-favoring schedule help to compensate her lack of more strong disciplines. Besides she is expanding her repertoire into speed disciplines and she can be dangerous in alpine combined.
Like in previous season, Mikaela Shiffrin is dominating slalom and has won all three slalom races of this season. In giant slalom, she started the season well with a second place in Sölden, yet since then her GS results have been a fifth and a sixth place. What's worrying for Shiffrin's campaign is that she is losing to her overall title rivals Gut and Goggia in GS.
Apart from one start in slalom, Lara Gut has always been in the top four when she has finished a race this season and she is trailing Shiffrin only by five points. Yet four times in this season's 10 starts, she has not finished the race. Importantly, she is showing better form than Shiffrin in giant slalom, yet she can't afford too many DNFs, especially as Goggia has proved to be a true contender in the disciplines where Gut is racing.
Besides, not finishing races is costly for the discipline standings. Despite not finishing the last downhill in Val d'Isère, Gut is third in the downhill standings but trailing the leader Štuhec by already 170 points. In the Val d'Isère combined, she had a chance for a top-10 result, yet she went out in the slalom leg and she is trailing the Val d'Isère winner Štuhec by 100 points. Importantly, she has finished both super-G races and won them, leading Tina Weirather in super-G standings by 40 points.
Sofia Goggia and Ilka Štuhec have been the sensations of this season. Not many people expected Goggia to consistently make the podium in four disciplines and Štuhec to dominate downhill.
Goggia achieved her first career World Cup podium only in late November in the Killington giant slalom. Yet after that, she has missed the podium only twice in her starts; in the second Lake Louise downhill she had her worst finish of the season in 12th place and in the last super-G in Val d'Isère she didn't finish the race. In the Val d'Isère super-G she even had a chance for the overall standings' lead; she was going below Gut's lead time before missing a gate.
Goggia in fourth place, 31 points down, is starting to look like a real contender for the overall title. She finishes consistently on the podium, doesn't have DNFs as often as Gut, and is doing better than Shiffrin in giant slalom. It seems like she has better chances for the big overall globe than for a small discipline globe. She is second in the downhill and giant slalom standings, yet in GS, her gap to the leader Tessa Worley is 55 points, and in downhill the gap to the leader Štuhec is as big as 138 points. Alpine combined might be Goggia's best chance for a discipline title, she is trailing the leader Štuhec by 40 points with two combined races remaining.
Ilka Štuhec made her first World Cup podium appearances in Lake Louise where she won both downhill races. In the next downhill race in Val d'Isère, she showed she can do well also on other slopes by winning again. Besides dominating the downhill races, she won the season's first alpine combined race in Val d'Isère.
Štuhec is in third place, 17 points down, in the overall standings and leading the downhill and alpine combined standings. Yet she seems too much of a downhill specialist to be a true overall title contender. She hasn't been able to match her downhill results in super-G where she has fifth and seventh places from this season's races. That may also cost her in the alpine combined standings as the remaining two combined races have super-G as the speed leg. In order to earn points for her overall campaign, Štuhec was also going to start in the Courchevel giant slalom that got canceled. Yet it's hard to see her suddenly scoring good points in giant slalom as she has scored GS points only once in her World Cup career.
Yet winning races is what can keep Štuhec's overall title dream alive. The points system rewards winning; one victory is worth two fourth places. But still it will be hard for her to race for the overall title unless she can beat her rivals also in super-G.
Tina Weirather is always one of the pre-season favorites for the overall title as she can succeed in downhill, super-G, and giant slalom. Still, her career-best overall ranking is last season's fourth place. After the early season, Weirather's overall title chances are very much gone as she's 171 points behind Shiffrin. In the past two weeks, she achieved her season-best results in all three disciplines she's doing. Fourth in the Sestriere giant slalom is a good result for her but the gap forward was big; she lost the victory by one second and even the podium by 0.71 seconds. Eighth in Val d'Isère was her season-best downhill result, yet far from what the 2012 World Cup downhill runner-up has potential for. Fortunately for Weirather, her both podium results of the season have come from the same discipline as she repeated the second place of Lake Louise in the Val d'Isère super-G, keeping her 40 points behind Gut in the discipline standings.
Weirather has the skills to be a title contender in both speed disciplines, yet the 221-point gap to Štuhec seems already too big. But her chances for the super-G title are still well alive. She has been at her best in super-G this season and both second places have come with just a minimal loss to Gut. If she can keep up her form in super-G, she can challenge Gut for the discipline title.
Shiffrin and Gut were the overall title favorites in the absence of Anna Veith and Lindsey Vonn. Gut is a frontrunner in downhill, super-G, and giant slalom, as well as in alpine combined. Shiffrin is a frontrunner only in slalom and giant slalom, yet her consistently great slalom performances and a tech-favoring schedule help to compensate her lack of more strong disciplines. Besides she is expanding her repertoire into speed disciplines and she can be dangerous in alpine combined.
Like in previous season, Mikaela Shiffrin is dominating slalom and has won all three slalom races of this season. In giant slalom, she started the season well with a second place in Sölden, yet since then her GS results have been a fifth and a sixth place. What's worrying for Shiffrin's campaign is that she is losing to her overall title rivals Gut and Goggia in GS.
Apart from one start in slalom, Lara Gut has always been in the top four when she has finished a race this season and she is trailing Shiffrin only by five points. Yet four times in this season's 10 starts, she has not finished the race. Importantly, she is showing better form than Shiffrin in giant slalom, yet she can't afford too many DNFs, especially as Goggia has proved to be a true contender in the disciplines where Gut is racing.
Besides, not finishing races is costly for the discipline standings. Despite not finishing the last downhill in Val d'Isère, Gut is third in the downhill standings but trailing the leader Štuhec by already 170 points. In the Val d'Isère combined, she had a chance for a top-10 result, yet she went out in the slalom leg and she is trailing the Val d'Isère winner Štuhec by 100 points. Importantly, she has finished both super-G races and won them, leading Tina Weirather in super-G standings by 40 points.
Sofia Goggia and Ilka Štuhec have been the sensations of this season. Not many people expected Goggia to consistently make the podium in four disciplines and Štuhec to dominate downhill.
Goggia achieved her first career World Cup podium only in late November in the Killington giant slalom. Yet after that, she has missed the podium only twice in her starts; in the second Lake Louise downhill she had her worst finish of the season in 12th place and in the last super-G in Val d'Isère she didn't finish the race. In the Val d'Isère super-G she even had a chance for the overall standings' lead; she was going below Gut's lead time before missing a gate.
Goggia in fourth place, 31 points down, is starting to look like a real contender for the overall title. She finishes consistently on the podium, doesn't have DNFs as often as Gut, and is doing better than Shiffrin in giant slalom. It seems like she has better chances for the big overall globe than for a small discipline globe. She is second in the downhill and giant slalom standings, yet in GS, her gap to the leader Tessa Worley is 55 points, and in downhill the gap to the leader Štuhec is as big as 138 points. Alpine combined might be Goggia's best chance for a discipline title, she is trailing the leader Štuhec by 40 points with two combined races remaining.
Ilka Štuhec made her first World Cup podium appearances in Lake Louise where she won both downhill races. In the next downhill race in Val d'Isère, she showed she can do well also on other slopes by winning again. Besides dominating the downhill races, she won the season's first alpine combined race in Val d'Isère.
Štuhec is in third place, 17 points down, in the overall standings and leading the downhill and alpine combined standings. Yet she seems too much of a downhill specialist to be a true overall title contender. She hasn't been able to match her downhill results in super-G where she has fifth and seventh places from this season's races. That may also cost her in the alpine combined standings as the remaining two combined races have super-G as the speed leg. In order to earn points for her overall campaign, Štuhec was also going to start in the Courchevel giant slalom that got canceled. Yet it's hard to see her suddenly scoring good points in giant slalom as she has scored GS points only once in her World Cup career.
Yet winning races is what can keep Štuhec's overall title dream alive. The points system rewards winning; one victory is worth two fourth places. But still it will be hard for her to race for the overall title unless she can beat her rivals also in super-G.
Tina Weirather is always one of the pre-season favorites for the overall title as she can succeed in downhill, super-G, and giant slalom. Still, her career-best overall ranking is last season's fourth place. After the early season, Weirather's overall title chances are very much gone as she's 171 points behind Shiffrin. In the past two weeks, she achieved her season-best results in all three disciplines she's doing. Fourth in the Sestriere giant slalom is a good result for her but the gap forward was big; she lost the victory by one second and even the podium by 0.71 seconds. Eighth in Val d'Isère was her season-best downhill result, yet far from what the 2012 World Cup downhill runner-up has potential for. Fortunately for Weirather, her both podium results of the season have come from the same discipline as she repeated the second place of Lake Louise in the Val d'Isère super-G, keeping her 40 points behind Gut in the discipline standings.
Weirather has the skills to be a title contender in both speed disciplines, yet the 221-point gap to Štuhec seems already too big. But her chances for the super-G title are still well alive. She has been at her best in super-G this season and both second places have come with just a minimal loss to Gut. If she can keep up her form in super-G, she can challenge Gut for the discipline title.
Friday, December 16, 2016
My favorite Alpine Skiing World Cup venues
The men's Alpine Skiing World Cup continues this weekend with its traditional pre-Christmas races of Val Gardena and Alta Badia in South Tyrol, Italy. As those belong to my favorite races in the schedule, I decided to make a list of my top 10 favorite World Cup race venues.
Being the only Finnish venue surely helped Levi to get into my list, yet wasn't the only reason. The opening weekend in Sölden in late October feels a bit like a false start, in mid-November when the Levi races take place I'm already looking forward to the winter sports season. And although the early calendar slot has caused some cancellations due to lack of snow, the races have usually taken place in perfect conditions even for the late start numbers.
The calendar slot as the last men's speed races before the World Cup Finals is a big reason for my inclusion of Kvitfjell. When titles are still open, the last races are the best part of the season. Usually in Kvitfjell races there are not only race wins but also World Cup titles at stake.
While I like Kvitfjell because of its late-season date, I like Lake Louise for hosting the first speed races of the season for men and women on consecutive weeks. Besides, what I particularly like about North American races (also in other sports) is their evening time slot for the European viewers. That leaves morning and afternoon free for other activities, and watching ski racing is a great way to spend the evening.
The women's World Cup lacks such classics as the men's World Cup has. Cortina is one of the most traditional women's venues and its speed races are a fixture in January's schedule, just like the Adelboden, Wengen, and Kitzbühel races are on the men's tour.
Just like Kvitjfell, Kranjska Gora is another traditional late-season venue, hosting the last men's technical races before the World Cup Finals. Besides that, the challenging Podkoren slope is one of the classics of ski racing.
The Hahnenkamm races in Kitzbühel are arguably the biggest event of the World Cup tour and the downhill on the Streif is the most challenging ski race on the planet. But there are things I don't like about the Hahnenkamm races.
Adverse weather conditions have quite often hurt the downhill, yet the organizers have been too stubborn to swap the date with the slalom as the most VIPs are coming there for the downhill on Saturday. Besides it's a pity the most prestigious ski race no longer has alpine combined. That being said, the combined formats of the past years have been too tech-favoring, be it the last format of a super-G and a slalom run or the previous format of a downhill run and two slalom runs.
Just like Lake Louise, Beaver Creek is another North American venue with a nice time zone for European viewers. In case of Beaver Creek, it's nice there are three races there, meaning ski racing action already in Friday evening.
Besides, I enjoyed the previous World Championships in Beaver Creek; the evening time slot was great especially on weekdays when there wouldn't have been time to watch the races in afternoon. For that reason it will also be nice to have this season's World Cup Finals in Aspen, another Colorado resort.
Adelboden is one of the biggest classics in ski racing, especially in giant slalom. The Chuenisbärgli slope ends with an extremely steep final section where the skiers come in front of the big crowd at the finish area.
If I traveled to a World Cup event, I'd probably prefer going to Adelboden. It's not as extravagant as Kitzbühel nor as distant as Wengen, yet from TV you can see the crowd is big and the atmosphere great in Adelboden.
I bundled these two as they share the same weekend and are located in the same region. Also starting from this year these two venues' races will form the Südtirol Ski Trophy with an overall winner of the four races.
I like especially Alta Badia. Gran Risa is possibly the most challenging giant slalom slope on the World Cup tour. And as a Finn I have great memories of the Alta Badia races as Kalle Palander achieved three GS victories there.
The picturesque Saslong course in Val Gardena is one of the most traditional downhills in ski racing, even if not quite as famous as those in Kitzbühel and Wengen. Val Gardena and Alta Badia form together a big weekend of men's World Cup action before Christmas, starting on Friday and nowadays extending to Monday with a parallel giant slalom.
The Lauberhorn races of Wengen may be considered to be less prestigious than the Hahnenkamm races of Kitzbühel; yet Wengen is still my favorite World Cup venue.
The Hahnenkamm downhill is the greatest challenge in ski racing, yet the Lauberhorn downhill is the longest on the World Cup tour and a different challenge. The Hahnenkamm downhill is technically more challenging whereas the Lauberhorn downhill is more about gliding skills and has the highest top speed. Personally I think Lauberhorn is the ultimate downhill race whereas the Hahnenkamm downhill is the ultimate ski race. Besides, the Lauberhorn downhill offers probably the most breathtaking views of the season with the mountains around and the Hundschopf jump between rocks on both sides of the course.
I also prefer the weekend format of Wengen over that of Kitzbühel. I like that alpine combined is still alive in Wengen. Wengen was the first to introduce the super combined format, shortening the downhill leg into the duration of a regular downhill run and combining it with only one run of slalom. That has proved to be a good combined format, being neutral between speed and tech specialists. Also, the Lauberhorn organizers have shown the common sense to swap downhill and slalom races if weather conditions threat the downhill.
Val-d'Isère and Garmisch-Partenkirchen are both some of the most traditional World Cup venues, hosting both men's and women's races. They both have also hosted the World Championships and Olympic races. Yet still for me, those venues don't stand out from the schedule like Adelboden, Wengen, and Kitzbühel do, and the title battles aren't most intense during those races.
Schladming traditionally hosts the night slalom the week after Kitzbühel in front of a huge crowd. Madonna di Campiglio is like an Italian version of it, hosting a night slalom in the Christmas week. Still both are only one-day events as opposed to entire weekends of ski racing. Besides I am more into speed disciplines, explaining the high number of speed venues in my top 10.
10. Levi, Finland
Being the only Finnish venue surely helped Levi to get into my list, yet wasn't the only reason. The opening weekend in Sölden in late October feels a bit like a false start, in mid-November when the Levi races take place I'm already looking forward to the winter sports season. And although the early calendar slot has caused some cancellations due to lack of snow, the races have usually taken place in perfect conditions even for the late start numbers.
9. Kvitfjell, Norway
The calendar slot as the last men's speed races before the World Cup Finals is a big reason for my inclusion of Kvitfjell. When titles are still open, the last races are the best part of the season. Usually in Kvitfjell races there are not only race wins but also World Cup titles at stake.
8. Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada
While I like Kvitfjell because of its late-season date, I like Lake Louise for hosting the first speed races of the season for men and women on consecutive weeks. Besides, what I particularly like about North American races (also in other sports) is their evening time slot for the European viewers. That leaves morning and afternoon free for other activities, and watching ski racing is a great way to spend the evening.
7. Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
The women's World Cup lacks such classics as the men's World Cup has. Cortina is one of the most traditional women's venues and its speed races are a fixture in January's schedule, just like the Adelboden, Wengen, and Kitzbühel races are on the men's tour.
6. Kranjska Gora, Slovenia
Just like Kvitjfell, Kranjska Gora is another traditional late-season venue, hosting the last men's technical races before the World Cup Finals. Besides that, the challenging Podkoren slope is one of the classics of ski racing.
5. Kitzbühel, Austria
The Hahnenkamm races in Kitzbühel are arguably the biggest event of the World Cup tour and the downhill on the Streif is the most challenging ski race on the planet. But there are things I don't like about the Hahnenkamm races.
Adverse weather conditions have quite often hurt the downhill, yet the organizers have been too stubborn to swap the date with the slalom as the most VIPs are coming there for the downhill on Saturday. Besides it's a pity the most prestigious ski race no longer has alpine combined. That being said, the combined formats of the past years have been too tech-favoring, be it the last format of a super-G and a slalom run or the previous format of a downhill run and two slalom runs.
4. Beaver Creek, Colorado, USA
Just like Lake Louise, Beaver Creek is another North American venue with a nice time zone for European viewers. In case of Beaver Creek, it's nice there are three races there, meaning ski racing action already in Friday evening.
Besides, I enjoyed the previous World Championships in Beaver Creek; the evening time slot was great especially on weekdays when there wouldn't have been time to watch the races in afternoon. For that reason it will also be nice to have this season's World Cup Finals in Aspen, another Colorado resort.
3. Adelboden, Switzerland
Adelboden is one of the biggest classics in ski racing, especially in giant slalom. The Chuenisbärgli slope ends with an extremely steep final section where the skiers come in front of the big crowd at the finish area.
If I traveled to a World Cup event, I'd probably prefer going to Adelboden. It's not as extravagant as Kitzbühel nor as distant as Wengen, yet from TV you can see the crowd is big and the atmosphere great in Adelboden.
2. Val Gardena / Gröden and Alta Badia, Italy
I bundled these two as they share the same weekend and are located in the same region. Also starting from this year these two venues' races will form the Südtirol Ski Trophy with an overall winner of the four races.
I like especially Alta Badia. Gran Risa is possibly the most challenging giant slalom slope on the World Cup tour. And as a Finn I have great memories of the Alta Badia races as Kalle Palander achieved three GS victories there.
The picturesque Saslong course in Val Gardena is one of the most traditional downhills in ski racing, even if not quite as famous as those in Kitzbühel and Wengen. Val Gardena and Alta Badia form together a big weekend of men's World Cup action before Christmas, starting on Friday and nowadays extending to Monday with a parallel giant slalom.
1. Wengen, Switzerland
The Lauberhorn races of Wengen may be considered to be less prestigious than the Hahnenkamm races of Kitzbühel; yet Wengen is still my favorite World Cup venue.
The Hahnenkamm downhill is the greatest challenge in ski racing, yet the Lauberhorn downhill is the longest on the World Cup tour and a different challenge. The Hahnenkamm downhill is technically more challenging whereas the Lauberhorn downhill is more about gliding skills and has the highest top speed. Personally I think Lauberhorn is the ultimate downhill race whereas the Hahnenkamm downhill is the ultimate ski race. Besides, the Lauberhorn downhill offers probably the most breathtaking views of the season with the mountains around and the Hundschopf jump between rocks on both sides of the course.
I also prefer the weekend format of Wengen over that of Kitzbühel. I like that alpine combined is still alive in Wengen. Wengen was the first to introduce the super combined format, shortening the downhill leg into the duration of a regular downhill run and combining it with only one run of slalom. That has proved to be a good combined format, being neutral between speed and tech specialists. Also, the Lauberhorn organizers have shown the common sense to swap downhill and slalom races if weather conditions threat the downhill.
Close but no cigar: Val-d'Isère, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Schladming, Madonna di Campiglio
Val-d'Isère and Garmisch-Partenkirchen are both some of the most traditional World Cup venues, hosting both men's and women's races. They both have also hosted the World Championships and Olympic races. Yet still for me, those venues don't stand out from the schedule like Adelboden, Wengen, and Kitzbühel do, and the title battles aren't most intense during those races.
Schladming traditionally hosts the night slalom the week after Kitzbühel in front of a huge crowd. Madonna di Campiglio is like an Italian version of it, hosting a night slalom in the Christmas week. Still both are only one-day events as opposed to entire weekends of ski racing. Besides I am more into speed disciplines, explaining the high number of speed venues in my top 10.
Friday, December 9, 2016
Hirscher facing once again a Norwegian overall title challenger
The five-time defending World Cup overall champion Marcel Hirscher is again leading the standings after the first five races of the 2016-17 season. After the second place of the season-opening Sölden giant slalom, Hirscher claimed the overall lead with a dominant slalom victory at Levi. Kjetil Jansrud dominated the opening speed races of the season by winning both the super-G and the downhill in Val d'Isère, yet Hirscher remained in a tied overall points lead with a 13th place in the super-G. With a second place in the Val d'Isère giant slalom, Hirscher leads Jansrud by 80 points.
Jansrud couldn't defend last winter his 2015 discipline titles in downhill and super-G, yet this season the Norwegian has got a perfect start for his campaign in speed disciplines with two victories. Yet once again his chances to race for the overall title seem slim. Hirscher already has the advantage of a tech-favoring schedule, and besides slalom and giant slalom he can score good points in super-G. Besides the speed disciplines, Jansrud does compete in giant slalom in which he once made his World Cup breakthrough and won the Olympic silver medal in 2010. Yet the past few seasons he's been struggling to make the top 20 in giant slalom and this season he is yet to finish a GS race. That will not be enough for the overall title if Hirscher stays healthy and in form.
Jansrud's countryman Aksel Lund Svindal has been Hirscher's main rival last years, though similarly to Jansrud, giant slalom has been Svindal's weakness. Back in the 00s when he won his two overall titles, he was among the frontrunners in GS before the early 2010s change in GS skis. Last year he was leading the World Cup overall standings before suffering a season-ending knee injury in a downhill crash in Kitzbühel. Svindal was just able to make a comeback in this season's opening speed races in Val d'Isère, impressing with the second place of the super-G and the third place of the downhill. Given he is likely to improve as the season progresses, the good form in the early season keeps him in those disciplines' title contention. He didn't participate in the giant slalom, which is understandable given his poor success in that discipline the past few seasons and his limited training in the offseason, yet that very much excludes him from the overall title battle.
Last winter Alexis Pinturault had a strong second half of the season, especially in giant slalom where he finished the season in second place. This season he's been ready to race for the GS title right from the start, winning the opening race in Sölden. With a third place from Val d'Isère he shares the GS standings' lead with the defending champion Hirscher.
Pinturault has versatility to compete besides giant slalom also in slalom, super-G, and alpine combined, in all of which he is a World Cup race winner. That makes him a potential overall title contender; however in the last couple of seasons his success has come only in GS and combined. He badly needs to beat Hirscher in either super-G or slalom to have a chance for the overall title. So far this season he hasn't succeeded in that; he was 11th in the Levi slalom and didn't finish the super-G in Val d'Isère.
Pinturault isn't the only successful Frenchman in giant slalom. The Frech team claimed four spots from the top five in the Val d'Isère giant slalom. Mathieu Faivre achieved his first World Cup victory and he is sitting in third place of the GS standings, 31 points behind Pinturault and Hirscher. Thomas Fanara finished the race in fourth place, yet suffered a season-ending knee injury. However Val d'Isère's fifth, Victor Muffat-Jeandet can be expected to be one of the frontrunners in giant slalom as well as in alpine combined.
The five-time World Cup giant slalom champion Ted Ligety has struggled the past two seasons and suffered a season-ending knee injury last January. So far Ligety hasn't impressed in his comeback; he sits in sixth in the GS standings with a fifth place from Sölden and an 11th place from Val d'Isère.
Henrik Kristoffersen dominated slalom last season as he ended Hirscher's run of three consecutive World Cup slalom titles. Besides that he was third in the giant slalom standings as he finished the season as the overall runner-up. This season he missed the opening slalom of Levi due to a sponsorship dispute, putting him already 100 points behind Hirscher. In giant slalom he hasn't been able to match his results from the last season, having scored two eighth places this season.
The veteran Italian Peter Fill achieved his second career World Cup victory last January in the Hahnenkamm downhill in Kitzbühel, over seven years from his maiden victory. At the end of the season he celebrated his first World Cup title in downhill. Fill's downhill title defense got a strong start with a second place in the Val d'Isère downhill. Besides Fill the Italian team has another strong contender in speed disciplines in Dominik Paris. Also Paris made the podium in Val d'Isère as he was third in the super-G.
Boštjan Kline didn't make the podium in Val d'Isère but had solid results of fifth in the super-G and fourth in the downhill. Results like that seem promising for the former junior world champion to achieve his maiden World Cup victory this season after last season's two second places.
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Shiffrin in World Cup overall lead after impressive downhill debut
Three-time World Cup slalom champion Mikaela Shiffrin remains in the overall standings' lead after women had their opening speed races in Lake Louise. Following a second place to the defending overall champion Lara Gut, Shiffrin scored a dominant victory in the slalom of Levi. In Killington, Vermont, Shiffrin couldn't make the podium in the giant slalom, yet for the delight of the American crowd she celebrated her second season victory in slalom.
Shiffrin made her World Cup debut in downhill in Lake Louise. With an 18th place she scored points right in her debut downhill and on the following day she improved into 13th place.
The defending World Cup overall champion Lara Gut opened her season by winning the Sölden giant slalom by almost 1.5 seconds to Shiffrin. Yet in the following giant slalom in Killington, she crashed out on the first run, dropping her into fifth place in the GS standings. In Lake Louise Gut had a solid weekend with fourth and second places in the downhill races and a victory in super-G whose discipline title she is defending. As Shiffrin missed the points in the super-G, Gut reduced Shiffrin's lead to 28 points with the super-G victory.
Ilka Štuhec and Sofia Goggia have been the biggest positive surprises in the early season. Štuhec made her first World Cup podium appearances in Lake Louise as she won both downhill races. She was also fifth in the Lake Louise super-G and she is fourth in the overall standings.
Sofia Goggia is sitting in third place in the overall standings with podium finishes in giant slalom, super-G, and downhill. Following a fifth place in the Sölden GS, Goggia achieved her first career podium with a third place in the Killington GS. In Lake Louise she made the podium again as she was second in the first downhill race. She was only 12th in the second downhill race in Lake Louise, yet returned to podium in the super-G with a third place that reduced her gap to the overall leader 91 points.
It will be interesting to see if Štuhec and Goggia can keep up their form throughout the season. Štuhec is too much of a speed specialist to be an overall title contender, yet she could be a strong contender for the downhill title. While the defending downhill champion Lindsey Vonn is currently aside after having broken her arm in a training crash, Gut can be expected to be a contender also for the downhill title. Tina Weirather scored only 14th and ninth places in the Lake Louise downhill races, yet the second place in the super-G lets us to expect her to become a frontrunner in downhill as well. Kajsa Kling might also be a title contender in speed disciplines; she is third in the downhill standings with third and fifth places, and she was also fourth in the Lake Louise super-G.
Goggia seems unlikely for any discipline title, yet with her versatility she can finish high in the overall standings. However, beating Gut in the three disciplines they both compete in is going to be hard for Goggia. And with the speed skills Shiffrin showcased in Lake Louise and the tech-favoring schedule, the tech specialist Shiffrin might top the overall standings in a way reminiscent of Marcel Hirscher on the men's side.
The Austrian team is missing two big names. Two-time World Cup overall champion Anna Veith (née Fenninger) is still recovering from the knee injury that kept her aside last season. While Veith is aiming for a comeback mid-season, the defending giant slalom champion Eva-Maria Brem broke her leg in training and will be aside for the rest of the season.
While Brem is aside, a former giant slalom world champion has returned to top. After the sixth place of Sölden, Tessa Worley dominated the Killington giant slalom, making her first podium appearance since December 2013 when she suffered a knee injury. After two races, she leads the GS standings by 15 points to Shiffrin. Third in the GS standings, 30 points from Worley, is the 20-year-old Italian Marta Bassino who has third and fourth places from the two GS races.
In slalom Shiffrin dominated the two races so far. Besides her, Wendy Holdener made the podium both at Levi and Killington, yet is trailing Shiffrin already by 60 points. The defending slalom champion Frida Hansdotter is only 19th in the standings, already 174 points behind Shiffrin.
Nina Løseth had strong performances in the previous technical races in Killington, finishing second in the giant slalom and fourth in the slalom. While it's hard to see anybody beating Shiffrin for the slalom title, the GS title battle is more open and Løseth could be a contender for it if she keeps on performing like in Killington.
Monday, March 23, 2015
My review of the 2014-15 Alpine Skiing season
The 2014-15 Alpine Skiing World Cup season came to its end last weekend and now it's time to look back into the past season.
Marcel Hirscher won the fourth consecutive overall World Cup title and for the first time in his career achieved the double of slalom and giant slalom World Cup titles in the same season. He was dominant in giant slalom, winning five of the eight races and missing the podium only once. In slalom he was more vulnerable, yet in the end, his final race win was enough for the slalom title. In the final weeks of the season, he had some decent super-G results. He scored points with the 17th place in Saalbach and was fourth in the final super-G in Méribel. I wonder if he does super-G more frequently next season, especially if he faces stronger opposition for the overall title.
Kjetil Jansrud was Norway's No. 1 skier as Aksel Lund Svindal missed the World Cup season because of an Achilles tendon injury. And Jansrud's season was like a copy of Svindal's last two seasons; he won both downhill and super-G World Cup titles but that wasn't enough to beat Hirscher for the overall World Cup. After a great start to the season, mediocre results mid-season cost him the chance to win the overall title. To afford missing podiums in speed disciplines, he should have a strong giant slalom like the likes of Maier and Eberharter had when winning overall titles. Instead of finishing on the 19th place of giant slalom standings, he should've been in the top 8 to beat Hirscher for the overall title. Next season his task will be even harder as the draft schedule has only 19 speed races (11 DHs & 8 SGs) as opposed to 23 technical races (10 GSs, 11 SLs, & 2 CEs). It will also be interesting to see how he can defend the downhill and super-G titles when Svindal will be back on the tour.
Alexis Pinturault finished the season on the third place of the overall World Cup, like last season. To me, it feels like he could make no progress from the last season. He has versatility needed to succeed in the overall World Cup; he can succeed in all disciplines but downhill. But to be a contender for the overall title, he needs to start winning and making podiums frequently. This season, he couldn't take a step into that direction, instead his two wins is one less than in last two seasons.
Felix Neureuther had a solid season, fourth in the overall World Cup and second in the slalom World Cup. Still, the last weeks of the season were a disappointment for him. He lost his 66-point slalom lead in slalom to Hirscher with the 9th and 12th places of the last two slaloms, being the runner-up for the third time in a row.
Hannes Reichelt was obviously the second-best skier in men's speed disciplines, World Championship gold medal in super-G, second place in the downhill World Cup, and fourth place in the super-G World Cup. He had a streak of strong downhill performances since January, including a win in Wengen to achieve the double of classic downhill wins after last year's Kitzbühel win. Before the final downhill of the season, he was only 20 points from Jansrud who dominated the early season. Still, in the final race he couldn't beat Jansrud for the downhill title.
Henrik Kristoffersen must be the biggest prospect on the tour. The junior World Champion won two slaloms this season and at the World Cup Finals he won his first giant slalom. I think he will be ready to race for the slalom World Cup title next season. In giant slalom he may need few more years for that, yet I can see him in the future as a Hirscher-style overall World Cup contender whose campaign is based on strong slalom and giant slalom.
In speed disciplines, it's harder to see potential future overall World Cup champions. Of younger speed skiers, Dominik Paris had the best season, second in the super-G and fourth in the downhill World Cup standings. Matthias Mayer was almost as good, third in the super-G standings and tied the fourth place in downhill. I expect both of them to win discipline titles in the future but prefer Mayer's chances for the overall title as he is at least a point-scorer in giant slalom. Yet his only top 10 result is a sixth place from last year's Olympics, he would need to improve a lot to be in giant slalom top 10 all season long.
One of my fondest memories of the season is Carlo Janka having won the combined in Wengen. That was the first win for the 2009-10 overall World Cup champion in almost four years, after suffering health issues. Even nicer was it happening in his home country Switzerland. He finished the season on the 10th place of the overall World Cup, his best season after 2010-11. But he still has lots of work ahead to win crystal globes again, 11th place in super-G was his best ranking in discipline standings.
Another fond memory is Ted Ligety having won the World Championship giant slalom in Beaver Creek, the first gold medal for the host nation on the third-last day. I was really happy the greatest giant slalom skier of this decade was able to win the gold medal in home championships as he will have retired before the next Worlds or Olympics in the USA. Apart from that gold medal and the World bronze medal in combined, this was otherwise a poor season by his standards. His only win in the World Cup was also from Beaver Creek, a giant slalom in early December. For the first time after 2009, he missed the top 2 in the giant slalom standings. And after this season, his overall World Cup dream seems quite distant. He would need another strong discipline besides giant slalom, yet he made no progress in any discipline this season, rather declined.
Anna Fenninger defended successfully the overall World Cup title. After winning the opening race in Sölden, the early season wasn't otherwise particuarly good for her and in January she was already over 300 points behind Tina Maze. But in her last 13 races, she missed the podium only twice and eventually won the overall World Cup by 22 points to Tina Maze. Besides the overall World Cup, she also managed to defend the giant slalom World Cup title. Winning the last three giant slaloms were decisive for both titles. In the speed disciplines, she challenged Lindsey Vonn very well for both downhill and super-G titles but couldn't quite beat her.
Tina Maze dominated the overall World Cup for the first half of the season. Her campaign was based on consistent good results in all disciplines rather than dominating few of them. For a long time, it worked well. Fenninger was mediocre in the first half of the season, Vonn doing only speed disciplines, and Shiffrin doing only technical disciplines. Once Fenninger started getting top results in giant slalom, super-G, and downhill, she started catching Maze whose form had dropped in technical disciplines. Maze got her best results in technical disciplines in weeks at the World Cup Finals but it wasn't anymore enough for her after the previous weeks' poor results.
Lindsey Vonn finished the season on the third place of the overall World Cup. That was a great season after her injuries. World Cup titles in downhill and super-G were very much all she could achieve by doing mostly speed disciplines. Fifth place in the final giant slalom gives some hope of a strong overall campaign next season but she would need those good giant slalom results frequently to challenge Fenninger who has three strong disciplines.
Mikaela Shiffrin finished the season on the fourth place of the overall World Cup. She was once again the dominant slalom skier and she also got her first giant slalom win this season. Within the next few seasons, I can see her becoming a strong contender for the giant slalom World Cup title. But if dominating technical disciplines is how Hirscher wins men's overall titles, that wouldn't work on women's side as the best speed skiers also have a strong giant slalom. For the overall title, Shiffrin must do at least super-G besides the technical disciplines. Despite some plans, she didn't debut in super-G this season but I expect her to give it a try in the future. If she could get decent super-G results, then she would have a great chance to win the overall title in the future.
Men
Marcel Hirscher won the fourth consecutive overall World Cup title and for the first time in his career achieved the double of slalom and giant slalom World Cup titles in the same season. He was dominant in giant slalom, winning five of the eight races and missing the podium only once. In slalom he was more vulnerable, yet in the end, his final race win was enough for the slalom title. In the final weeks of the season, he had some decent super-G results. He scored points with the 17th place in Saalbach and was fourth in the final super-G in Méribel. I wonder if he does super-G more frequently next season, especially if he faces stronger opposition for the overall title.
Kjetil Jansrud was Norway's No. 1 skier as Aksel Lund Svindal missed the World Cup season because of an Achilles tendon injury. And Jansrud's season was like a copy of Svindal's last two seasons; he won both downhill and super-G World Cup titles but that wasn't enough to beat Hirscher for the overall World Cup. After a great start to the season, mediocre results mid-season cost him the chance to win the overall title. To afford missing podiums in speed disciplines, he should have a strong giant slalom like the likes of Maier and Eberharter had when winning overall titles. Instead of finishing on the 19th place of giant slalom standings, he should've been in the top 8 to beat Hirscher for the overall title. Next season his task will be even harder as the draft schedule has only 19 speed races (11 DHs & 8 SGs) as opposed to 23 technical races (10 GSs, 11 SLs, & 2 CEs). It will also be interesting to see how he can defend the downhill and super-G titles when Svindal will be back on the tour.
Alexis Pinturault finished the season on the third place of the overall World Cup, like last season. To me, it feels like he could make no progress from the last season. He has versatility needed to succeed in the overall World Cup; he can succeed in all disciplines but downhill. But to be a contender for the overall title, he needs to start winning and making podiums frequently. This season, he couldn't take a step into that direction, instead his two wins is one less than in last two seasons.
Felix Neureuther had a solid season, fourth in the overall World Cup and second in the slalom World Cup. Still, the last weeks of the season were a disappointment for him. He lost his 66-point slalom lead in slalom to Hirscher with the 9th and 12th places of the last two slaloms, being the runner-up for the third time in a row.
Hannes Reichelt was obviously the second-best skier in men's speed disciplines, World Championship gold medal in super-G, second place in the downhill World Cup, and fourth place in the super-G World Cup. He had a streak of strong downhill performances since January, including a win in Wengen to achieve the double of classic downhill wins after last year's Kitzbühel win. Before the final downhill of the season, he was only 20 points from Jansrud who dominated the early season. Still, in the final race he couldn't beat Jansrud for the downhill title.
Henrik Kristoffersen must be the biggest prospect on the tour. The junior World Champion won two slaloms this season and at the World Cup Finals he won his first giant slalom. I think he will be ready to race for the slalom World Cup title next season. In giant slalom he may need few more years for that, yet I can see him in the future as a Hirscher-style overall World Cup contender whose campaign is based on strong slalom and giant slalom.
In speed disciplines, it's harder to see potential future overall World Cup champions. Of younger speed skiers, Dominik Paris had the best season, second in the super-G and fourth in the downhill World Cup standings. Matthias Mayer was almost as good, third in the super-G standings and tied the fourth place in downhill. I expect both of them to win discipline titles in the future but prefer Mayer's chances for the overall title as he is at least a point-scorer in giant slalom. Yet his only top 10 result is a sixth place from last year's Olympics, he would need to improve a lot to be in giant slalom top 10 all season long.
One of my fondest memories of the season is Carlo Janka having won the combined in Wengen. That was the first win for the 2009-10 overall World Cup champion in almost four years, after suffering health issues. Even nicer was it happening in his home country Switzerland. He finished the season on the 10th place of the overall World Cup, his best season after 2010-11. But he still has lots of work ahead to win crystal globes again, 11th place in super-G was his best ranking in discipline standings.
Another fond memory is Ted Ligety having won the World Championship giant slalom in Beaver Creek, the first gold medal for the host nation on the third-last day. I was really happy the greatest giant slalom skier of this decade was able to win the gold medal in home championships as he will have retired before the next Worlds or Olympics in the USA. Apart from that gold medal and the World bronze medal in combined, this was otherwise a poor season by his standards. His only win in the World Cup was also from Beaver Creek, a giant slalom in early December. For the first time after 2009, he missed the top 2 in the giant slalom standings. And after this season, his overall World Cup dream seems quite distant. He would need another strong discipline besides giant slalom, yet he made no progress in any discipline this season, rather declined.
Women
Anna Fenninger defended successfully the overall World Cup title. After winning the opening race in Sölden, the early season wasn't otherwise particuarly good for her and in January she was already over 300 points behind Tina Maze. But in her last 13 races, she missed the podium only twice and eventually won the overall World Cup by 22 points to Tina Maze. Besides the overall World Cup, she also managed to defend the giant slalom World Cup title. Winning the last three giant slaloms were decisive for both titles. In the speed disciplines, she challenged Lindsey Vonn very well for both downhill and super-G titles but couldn't quite beat her.
Tina Maze dominated the overall World Cup for the first half of the season. Her campaign was based on consistent good results in all disciplines rather than dominating few of them. For a long time, it worked well. Fenninger was mediocre in the first half of the season, Vonn doing only speed disciplines, and Shiffrin doing only technical disciplines. Once Fenninger started getting top results in giant slalom, super-G, and downhill, she started catching Maze whose form had dropped in technical disciplines. Maze got her best results in technical disciplines in weeks at the World Cup Finals but it wasn't anymore enough for her after the previous weeks' poor results.
Lindsey Vonn finished the season on the third place of the overall World Cup. That was a great season after her injuries. World Cup titles in downhill and super-G were very much all she could achieve by doing mostly speed disciplines. Fifth place in the final giant slalom gives some hope of a strong overall campaign next season but she would need those good giant slalom results frequently to challenge Fenninger who has three strong disciplines.
Mikaela Shiffrin finished the season on the fourth place of the overall World Cup. She was once again the dominant slalom skier and she also got her first giant slalom win this season. Within the next few seasons, I can see her becoming a strong contender for the giant slalom World Cup title. But if dominating technical disciplines is how Hirscher wins men's overall titles, that wouldn't work on women's side as the best speed skiers also have a strong giant slalom. For the overall title, Shiffrin must do at least super-G besides the technical disciplines. Despite some plans, she didn't debut in super-G this season but I expect her to give it a try in the future. If she could get decent super-G results, then she would have a great chance to win the overall title in the future.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
2015 Alpine Skiing World Cup title battles: Finals in Méribel
The Alpine Skiing World Cup will finish with the Finals in Méribel. The final downhills will be on Wednesday and the super-Gs on Thursday. On Friday there will be a team event. The final technical races will be in the weekend; men will have the giant slalom on Saturday and the slalom on Sunday, women will have the races in those disciplines in the opposite order.
The men's overall title seems pretty secure for Marcel Hirscher as he has a 164-point lead over Kjetil Jansrud. Jansrud could take the World Cup lead after the speed races with a win and a second place but Hirscher should secure the title with routine performances in the technical disciplines, if Jansrud even overtook him in points in the speed races.
The battle for the third place seemed interesting two weeks ago with two races in each discipline remaining; five men were within 83 points. Now before the final races, those five men are within 207 points. Alexis Pinturault is on the third place, 82 points ahead of fourth-placed Felix Neureuther. Dominik Paris is on the fifth place 153 points behind Pinturault, which is probably too much even if he won both speed races and scored 200 points there. It already seemed before Kranjska Gora that Neureuther is on Pinturault's level in giant slalom and that he can score more points in slalom than Pinturault in slalom and super-G combined. That's why he was my pick for the third place. But Neureuther wasn't very good in Kranjska Gora whereas Pinturault had a very good weekend, his first giant slalom win of the season and his second-best slalom result of the season, a seventh place. He can also succeed in super-G so right now he seems to be on the way to the third place in the overall World Cup like last season.
After Kjetil Jansrud's win in Kitzbühel, Hannes Reichelt has caught him by 194 points in the last three downhill races and is now only 20 points behind. Third consecutive downhill win would give him the title as he would finish with at least equal points with Jansrud and have one more win. In other scenarios ending with a tie, Jansrud would get the title as he has more second or fourth places.
Jansrud's best result from last three downhills is a seventh place (36 points) in the last downhill in Kvitfjell whereas Reichelt's worst result from last three downhills is a third place (60 points) in Saalbach. So, Reichelt can well deny Jansrud from finishing the season on the top of the downhill standings he's lead all season long.
But let's not write Jansrud off. A super-G win in Kvitfjell shows his form is still there. If he can bring his best to the final downhill, Reichelt will have trouble to beat him. And warm spring weather may make it hard to finish high in the results. Let's remember the 2011 final downhill where the title contenders Cuche and Walchhofer finished on 4th and 11th positions. The lower Reichelt finishes, the more skiers he needs ahead of Jansrud to gain 21 points on him.
Jansrud secured this title already in Kvitfjell. And also other top 3 positions seem quite secure. Second-placed Dominik Paris is 79 points ahead of third-placed Matthias Mayer who is 67 points ahead of fourth-placed Hannes Reichelt.
Marcel Hirscher secured the giant slalom World Cup title in Kranjska Gora but the second place is open. Alexis Pinturault is leading last year's champion Ted Ligety by 33 points. This can still go either way; while Ligety has been having a poor World Cup season by his standards, his World Championship gold was proof of his great skills. If Ligety had a good race or Pinturault a bad one, then 33 points can be caught. But in the last giant slalom in Kranjska Gora, Pinturault took an impressive win and Ligety has had only fourth places in the two races after the Worlds. So I expect Pinturault to keep the second place in the giant slalom standings.
Felix Neureuther had a weak race in Kranjska Gora, a ninth place, and he couldn't secure the slalom title. His title rival Marcel Hirscher had a huge mistake in his first run but was still able to finish sixth, catching Neureuther by 11 points. Neureuther's lead is now 55 points and he'd need a top 4 finish if Hirscher won. He's missed the top 4 only twice this season but worryingly Kranjska Gora was the other of them. On the other hand, if he didn't score any points, Hirscher would still need to finish on podium, what he hasn't done after the Kitzbühel slalom almost two months ago. The good thing for Hirscher is that he'll probably have secured the overall title before the final slalom so he can take risks to win the race.
Anna Fenninger overtook Tina Maze in the overall standings in the weekend of Åre and she leads by 30 points. Maze's task to take the lead back in the Finals seems very hard. She is behind Fenninger in all disciplines but slalom and the 15th place of the last slalom would give no points at the Finals where only fifteen best get points.
Speed disciplines have recently been Maze's strongest disciplines and they may be a chance for her to catch and overtake Fenninger. But Fenninger is so strong in speed disciplines that it is equally possible Fenninger will further expand her lead. Giant slalom is the discipline where Fenninger has the biggest advantage over Maze and it will be hard for Maze to make up the deficit in slalom where she hasn't been on podium since mid-January. To win the title, Maze needs perfect races and probably also poor results from Fenninger. Given it's been Fenninger with great results and Maze with poor results, Fenninger seems to be on the way to the overall World Cup title.
Mikaela Shiffrin is on the third place, 58 points ahead of Lindsey Vonn. Vonn will probably overtake her after the speed races but looking at the previous races, Shiffrin will probably score well over 100 points in the technical disciplines, maybe over 150. So, to finish the overall standings on third place, Vonn may need to win both speed races, what she may also need for the titles in those disciplines.
Anna Fenninger caught Lindsey Vonn by 44 points in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and is now 35 points behind. Including the World Championships, Fenninger has now three second places in a row in downhill whereas Vonn's best downhill result from that period is a fifth place at the Worlds. Now Vonn needs a strong performance to keep her points lead. Fifth place is enough if Fenninger is again second. If Fenninger wins, Vonn needs to be second. Tina Maze has a very slim chance for the title. She is 96 points behind Vonn and 61 behind Fenninger. To win the title, she would have to win and Vonn would have to miss the top 15 as well as Fenninger would have to miss the top 6. So that is a very unlikely scenario.
I still trust in Vonn here, she is the best downhill skier on women's side. In the second Garmisch race, the super-G, Vonn won and Fenninger was only third, even though super-G should be Vonn's weaker and Fenninger's better discipline. I expect yet another solid performance by Fenninger in the final downhill but Vonn has the capabilities to do what is needed for the title.
Vonn regained the super-G points lead from Fenninger in Garmisch, one week after having lost it in Bansko. But with a minimal gap of eight points, this is getting to be a one-race shootout for the title. By beating Vonn, Fenninger would be close to taking the lead in the final race, a podium finish would surely be enough in that case.
While I rate Vonn above Fenninger as a super-G skier, Fenninger is closer to her in super-G than in downhill and she's been in a great form recently. But I really can't choose the title favorite here.
Mikaela Shiffrin leads the slalom standings by 90 points to Frida Hansdotter. Hansdotter's only chance is to win the final race and Shiffrin would have to miss the top 15. That is quite unlikely a scenario; Shiffrin has won the last two World Cup slaloms plus the World Championship slalom and hasn't missed the top 15 all season long. Hansdotter has only one win and only one of her second places was a loss to Shiffrin; that was at the World Championships.
Anna Fenninger leads the giant slalom standings to Eva-Maria Brem by 86 points. The situation is quite the same as in slalom. Brem's only chance is to win the final race and Fenninger would have to miss the top 15. Also, Fenninger's recent giant slalom record reminds of Shiffrin in slalom, she's won the last two World Cup giant slaloms plus the World Championship giant slalom and hasn't missed the top 15 all season long. And just like Hansdotter in slalom, Brem has only one win in giant slalom, so the scenario of her winning the giant slalom title is very unlikely.
Men
Men's overall
The men's overall title seems pretty secure for Marcel Hirscher as he has a 164-point lead over Kjetil Jansrud. Jansrud could take the World Cup lead after the speed races with a win and a second place but Hirscher should secure the title with routine performances in the technical disciplines, if Jansrud even overtook him in points in the speed races.
The battle for the third place seemed interesting two weeks ago with two races in each discipline remaining; five men were within 83 points. Now before the final races, those five men are within 207 points. Alexis Pinturault is on the third place, 82 points ahead of fourth-placed Felix Neureuther. Dominik Paris is on the fifth place 153 points behind Pinturault, which is probably too much even if he won both speed races and scored 200 points there. It already seemed before Kranjska Gora that Neureuther is on Pinturault's level in giant slalom and that he can score more points in slalom than Pinturault in slalom and super-G combined. That's why he was my pick for the third place. But Neureuther wasn't very good in Kranjska Gora whereas Pinturault had a very good weekend, his first giant slalom win of the season and his second-best slalom result of the season, a seventh place. He can also succeed in super-G so right now he seems to be on the way to the third place in the overall World Cup like last season.
Men's downhill
After Kjetil Jansrud's win in Kitzbühel, Hannes Reichelt has caught him by 194 points in the last three downhill races and is now only 20 points behind. Third consecutive downhill win would give him the title as he would finish with at least equal points with Jansrud and have one more win. In other scenarios ending with a tie, Jansrud would get the title as he has more second or fourth places.
Jansrud's best result from last three downhills is a seventh place (36 points) in the last downhill in Kvitfjell whereas Reichelt's worst result from last three downhills is a third place (60 points) in Saalbach. So, Reichelt can well deny Jansrud from finishing the season on the top of the downhill standings he's lead all season long.
But let's not write Jansrud off. A super-G win in Kvitfjell shows his form is still there. If he can bring his best to the final downhill, Reichelt will have trouble to beat him. And warm spring weather may make it hard to finish high in the results. Let's remember the 2011 final downhill where the title contenders Cuche and Walchhofer finished on 4th and 11th positions. The lower Reichelt finishes, the more skiers he needs ahead of Jansrud to gain 21 points on him.
Men's super-G
Jansrud secured this title already in Kvitfjell. And also other top 3 positions seem quite secure. Second-placed Dominik Paris is 79 points ahead of third-placed Matthias Mayer who is 67 points ahead of fourth-placed Hannes Reichelt.
Men's giant slalom
Marcel Hirscher secured the giant slalom World Cup title in Kranjska Gora but the second place is open. Alexis Pinturault is leading last year's champion Ted Ligety by 33 points. This can still go either way; while Ligety has been having a poor World Cup season by his standards, his World Championship gold was proof of his great skills. If Ligety had a good race or Pinturault a bad one, then 33 points can be caught. But in the last giant slalom in Kranjska Gora, Pinturault took an impressive win and Ligety has had only fourth places in the two races after the Worlds. So I expect Pinturault to keep the second place in the giant slalom standings.
Men's slalom
Felix Neureuther had a weak race in Kranjska Gora, a ninth place, and he couldn't secure the slalom title. His title rival Marcel Hirscher had a huge mistake in his first run but was still able to finish sixth, catching Neureuther by 11 points. Neureuther's lead is now 55 points and he'd need a top 4 finish if Hirscher won. He's missed the top 4 only twice this season but worryingly Kranjska Gora was the other of them. On the other hand, if he didn't score any points, Hirscher would still need to finish on podium, what he hasn't done after the Kitzbühel slalom almost two months ago. The good thing for Hirscher is that he'll probably have secured the overall title before the final slalom so he can take risks to win the race.
Women
Women's overall
Anna Fenninger overtook Tina Maze in the overall standings in the weekend of Åre and she leads by 30 points. Maze's task to take the lead back in the Finals seems very hard. She is behind Fenninger in all disciplines but slalom and the 15th place of the last slalom would give no points at the Finals where only fifteen best get points.
Speed disciplines have recently been Maze's strongest disciplines and they may be a chance for her to catch and overtake Fenninger. But Fenninger is so strong in speed disciplines that it is equally possible Fenninger will further expand her lead. Giant slalom is the discipline where Fenninger has the biggest advantage over Maze and it will be hard for Maze to make up the deficit in slalom where she hasn't been on podium since mid-January. To win the title, Maze needs perfect races and probably also poor results from Fenninger. Given it's been Fenninger with great results and Maze with poor results, Fenninger seems to be on the way to the overall World Cup title.
Mikaela Shiffrin is on the third place, 58 points ahead of Lindsey Vonn. Vonn will probably overtake her after the speed races but looking at the previous races, Shiffrin will probably score well over 100 points in the technical disciplines, maybe over 150. So, to finish the overall standings on third place, Vonn may need to win both speed races, what she may also need for the titles in those disciplines.
Women's downhill
Anna Fenninger caught Lindsey Vonn by 44 points in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and is now 35 points behind. Including the World Championships, Fenninger has now three second places in a row in downhill whereas Vonn's best downhill result from that period is a fifth place at the Worlds. Now Vonn needs a strong performance to keep her points lead. Fifth place is enough if Fenninger is again second. If Fenninger wins, Vonn needs to be second. Tina Maze has a very slim chance for the title. She is 96 points behind Vonn and 61 behind Fenninger. To win the title, she would have to win and Vonn would have to miss the top 15 as well as Fenninger would have to miss the top 6. So that is a very unlikely scenario.
I still trust in Vonn here, she is the best downhill skier on women's side. In the second Garmisch race, the super-G, Vonn won and Fenninger was only third, even though super-G should be Vonn's weaker and Fenninger's better discipline. I expect yet another solid performance by Fenninger in the final downhill but Vonn has the capabilities to do what is needed for the title.
Women's super-G
Vonn regained the super-G points lead from Fenninger in Garmisch, one week after having lost it in Bansko. But with a minimal gap of eight points, this is getting to be a one-race shootout for the title. By beating Vonn, Fenninger would be close to taking the lead in the final race, a podium finish would surely be enough in that case.
While I rate Vonn above Fenninger as a super-G skier, Fenninger is closer to her in super-G than in downhill and she's been in a great form recently. But I really can't choose the title favorite here.
Women's slalom
Mikaela Shiffrin leads the slalom standings by 90 points to Frida Hansdotter. Hansdotter's only chance is to win the final race and Shiffrin would have to miss the top 15. That is quite unlikely a scenario; Shiffrin has won the last two World Cup slaloms plus the World Championship slalom and hasn't missed the top 15 all season long. Hansdotter has only one win and only one of her second places was a loss to Shiffrin; that was at the World Championships.
Women's giant slalom
Anna Fenninger leads the giant slalom standings to Eva-Maria Brem by 86 points. The situation is quite the same as in slalom. Brem's only chance is to win the final race and Fenninger would have to miss the top 15. Also, Fenninger's recent giant slalom record reminds of Shiffrin in slalom, she's won the last two World Cup giant slaloms plus the World Championship giant slalom and hasn't missed the top 15 all season long. And just like Hansdotter in slalom, Brem has only one win in giant slalom, so the scenario of her winning the giant slalom title is very unlikely.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
2015 Alpine Skiing World Cup title battles: overall, giant slalom, and slalom
Next weekend there will be the second-last World Cup races of the season in technical disciplines. Women will race on Friday and Saturday in Åre and men will race on Saturday and Sunday in Kranjska Gora. In my previous post, I wrote about the speed disciplines' World Cup title battles, now I write about the technical disciplines' title battles as well as about the overall World Cup.
Kjetil Jansrud reduced Marcel Hirscher's lead from 188 points to 52 points in the speed events of Kvitfjell but that is too little too late. Hirscher is the big favorite for Saturday's giant slalom and can also win Sunday's slalom. While Jansrud does giant slalom, he will probably score only small points, and the gap can be after Kranjska Gora even bigger than before Kvitfjell.
The battle for the third place is more interesting. Alexis Pinturault is 17 points ahead of Dominik Paris and 20 points ahead of Felix Neureuther. Paris is in the worst position of these as he doesn't race in Kranjska Gora. I fancy Neureuther's chances to finish the season on overall third place. He has recently been on Pinturault's level in giant slalom and his slalom is very strong. Pinturault does slalom and super-G besides giant slalom but he seems unable to score high enough points in those disciplines to match Neureuther's slalom points. Paris's chance for third place would be to have excellent final downhill and super-G races in Méribel and he would need mediocre races from Pinturault and Neureuther.
I think men's slalom has the most interesting title battle of technical disciplines in either gender. The last two years' runner-up Neureuther leads the last two years' champion Hirscher by 66 points. Neureuther has been having a solid slalom season, only one retirement and otherwise always on podium, winning two races. Hirscher has been more inconsistent. Two wins but also a retirement and two other missed podiums. And we saw that inconsistency also at the World Championships where he ran out in the second run after being fastest in the first run.
66 points is a good lead but this title battle may still be far from over. I think Hirscher is the fastest slalom skier. Despite the inconsistent results this season, I could see him even winning the remaining two slaloms. And in that case, two third places wouldn't be enough for Neureuther. On the other hand, Neureuther can secure the slalom title in Kranjska Gora by scoring 35 points more than Hirscher. I think this will come to whether Neureuther can perform up to his potential. If he can, then the title should be his. If he can't, then Hirscher will get a chance for the title. And the overall standings may play a role here. If Hirscher needs a safe result for the overall, he may not be able to threaten Neureuther then. A third place in Kranjska Gora wouldn't be enough for Hirscher to take the title decision to the final race if Neureuther wins.
Men's giant slalom title is almost secure for Hirscher already. All he needs is 12 points if currently second-placed Ligety won the remaining two races. A top 19 result in Kranjska Gora secures the title for Hirscher.
The gap between Tina Maze and Anna Fenninger remained in 44 points as they both had a second and a third place in the speed events of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. So, it seems like speed events won't make a big difference between them but the technical events next weekend in Åre and in the Finals in Méribel may make. Maze's former parade discipline giant slalom has been her worst discipline this season. She won a giant slalom in next weekend's venue Åre in December but after that her best giant slalom result has been the fifth place at the World Championships. Meanwhile Fenninger has been in a great giant slalom form in the last races. She was second after Christmas in Kühtai, won the World Championship giant slalom, and after the Worlds, she won the latest World Cup giant slalom in Maribor. To offset the deficit to Fenninger in giant slalom, Maze may need podium finishes in slalom. She has three podium results from this season's seven World Cup slaloms. But she failed to finish in the latest slalom in Maribor and she was only eighth in the World Championship slalom.
Looking at the latest races, it seems like Fenninger will overtake Maze in the standings, Maze hasn't been in her best form. But if Maze can bring her best in the remaining races, then I think doing all four disciplines should win the title for her.
The third-place battle is between two Americans, Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin. In the speed races of Garmisch, Vonn turned a deficit of 44 points into a lead of 92 points. Now the technical events of Åre provide Shiffrin a chance to overtake Vonn. Even if Vonn did giant slalom, Shiffrin is still almost likely to overtake Vonn next weekend. Including the World Championships, Shiffrin has won four of her five last slalom races and finished one on third place. In her weaker discipline, she has won one race this season and her worst giant slalom result of the season was a tenth place in Åre in December.
The defending champion Anna Fenninger leads Eva-Maria Brem by 46 points. Brem started the season well with three podium finishes, including a win in Aspen. But her recent results don't seem like she could challenge Fenninger for the title. Fenninger has been in a great form, a win and a second pace from the last two World Cup giant slaloms and a win at the World Championships. Mikaela Shiffrin scored her first giant slalom win this season but she is 71 points behind Fenninger, which is probably too much for her to catch.
Fenninger can secure the giant slalom title already in Åre by scoring 55 points more than Brem and 30 points more than Shiffrin. If Fenninger won, Brem would need a top 4 result and Shiffrin a second place to stay in contention for the title.
In women's slalom, the two-time defending champion Shiffrin is leading the standings. Her closest rival is last year's runner-up Frida Hansdotter 30 points behind. I trust in Shiffrin here. Hansdotter is a great slalom skier but Shiffrin is just better. But Shiffrin still needs strong performances to win the title. If she had to retire and Hansdotter won, Hansdotter would suddenly have a 70-point lead and need only a top 8 result in the final race. And this hasn't been a flawless season for Shiffrin, she needed four races to win or even make the podium in slalom. Since then she's been great, though. Always on podium, winning all but one race.
To secure the slalom title in Åre, Shiffrin would need 71 points more than Hansdotter. If Shiffrin won, then Hansdotter would need a top 8 result to stay in contention for the title.
In speed disciplines, the first crystal globe is already decided as Jansrud won the Kvitfjell super-G and extended his points lead over second-placed Paris to over hundred points. In downhill he wasn't able to secure the title in Kvitfjell though. The winner of the Kvitfjell downhill, Hannes Reichelt, reduced the gap to 20 points before the final downhill.
In women's speed disciplines, Vonn leads both downhill and super-G standings. Fenninger reduced her downhill points lead to 35 points whereas in the super-G standings Vonn overtook Fenninger to lead by eight points.
I will write more about the speed disciplines standings before the World Cup Finals in Méribel.
Men's overall
Kjetil Jansrud reduced Marcel Hirscher's lead from 188 points to 52 points in the speed events of Kvitfjell but that is too little too late. Hirscher is the big favorite for Saturday's giant slalom and can also win Sunday's slalom. While Jansrud does giant slalom, he will probably score only small points, and the gap can be after Kranjska Gora even bigger than before Kvitfjell.
The battle for the third place is more interesting. Alexis Pinturault is 17 points ahead of Dominik Paris and 20 points ahead of Felix Neureuther. Paris is in the worst position of these as he doesn't race in Kranjska Gora. I fancy Neureuther's chances to finish the season on overall third place. He has recently been on Pinturault's level in giant slalom and his slalom is very strong. Pinturault does slalom and super-G besides giant slalom but he seems unable to score high enough points in those disciplines to match Neureuther's slalom points. Paris's chance for third place would be to have excellent final downhill and super-G races in Méribel and he would need mediocre races from Pinturault and Neureuther.
Men's slalom
I think men's slalom has the most interesting title battle of technical disciplines in either gender. The last two years' runner-up Neureuther leads the last two years' champion Hirscher by 66 points. Neureuther has been having a solid slalom season, only one retirement and otherwise always on podium, winning two races. Hirscher has been more inconsistent. Two wins but also a retirement and two other missed podiums. And we saw that inconsistency also at the World Championships where he ran out in the second run after being fastest in the first run.
66 points is a good lead but this title battle may still be far from over. I think Hirscher is the fastest slalom skier. Despite the inconsistent results this season, I could see him even winning the remaining two slaloms. And in that case, two third places wouldn't be enough for Neureuther. On the other hand, Neureuther can secure the slalom title in Kranjska Gora by scoring 35 points more than Hirscher. I think this will come to whether Neureuther can perform up to his potential. If he can, then the title should be his. If he can't, then Hirscher will get a chance for the title. And the overall standings may play a role here. If Hirscher needs a safe result for the overall, he may not be able to threaten Neureuther then. A third place in Kranjska Gora wouldn't be enough for Hirscher to take the title decision to the final race if Neureuther wins.
Men's giant slalom
Men's giant slalom title is almost secure for Hirscher already. All he needs is 12 points if currently second-placed Ligety won the remaining two races. A top 19 result in Kranjska Gora secures the title for Hirscher.
Women's overall
The gap between Tina Maze and Anna Fenninger remained in 44 points as they both had a second and a third place in the speed events of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. So, it seems like speed events won't make a big difference between them but the technical events next weekend in Åre and in the Finals in Méribel may make. Maze's former parade discipline giant slalom has been her worst discipline this season. She won a giant slalom in next weekend's venue Åre in December but after that her best giant slalom result has been the fifth place at the World Championships. Meanwhile Fenninger has been in a great giant slalom form in the last races. She was second after Christmas in Kühtai, won the World Championship giant slalom, and after the Worlds, she won the latest World Cup giant slalom in Maribor. To offset the deficit to Fenninger in giant slalom, Maze may need podium finishes in slalom. She has three podium results from this season's seven World Cup slaloms. But she failed to finish in the latest slalom in Maribor and she was only eighth in the World Championship slalom.
Looking at the latest races, it seems like Fenninger will overtake Maze in the standings, Maze hasn't been in her best form. But if Maze can bring her best in the remaining races, then I think doing all four disciplines should win the title for her.
The third-place battle is between two Americans, Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin. In the speed races of Garmisch, Vonn turned a deficit of 44 points into a lead of 92 points. Now the technical events of Åre provide Shiffrin a chance to overtake Vonn. Even if Vonn did giant slalom, Shiffrin is still almost likely to overtake Vonn next weekend. Including the World Championships, Shiffrin has won four of her five last slalom races and finished one on third place. In her weaker discipline, she has won one race this season and her worst giant slalom result of the season was a tenth place in Åre in December.
Women's giant slalom
The defending champion Anna Fenninger leads Eva-Maria Brem by 46 points. Brem started the season well with three podium finishes, including a win in Aspen. But her recent results don't seem like she could challenge Fenninger for the title. Fenninger has been in a great form, a win and a second pace from the last two World Cup giant slaloms and a win at the World Championships. Mikaela Shiffrin scored her first giant slalom win this season but she is 71 points behind Fenninger, which is probably too much for her to catch.
Fenninger can secure the giant slalom title already in Åre by scoring 55 points more than Brem and 30 points more than Shiffrin. If Fenninger won, Brem would need a top 4 result and Shiffrin a second place to stay in contention for the title.
Women's slalom
In women's slalom, the two-time defending champion Shiffrin is leading the standings. Her closest rival is last year's runner-up Frida Hansdotter 30 points behind. I trust in Shiffrin here. Hansdotter is a great slalom skier but Shiffrin is just better. But Shiffrin still needs strong performances to win the title. If she had to retire and Hansdotter won, Hansdotter would suddenly have a 70-point lead and need only a top 8 result in the final race. And this hasn't been a flawless season for Shiffrin, she needed four races to win or even make the podium in slalom. Since then she's been great, though. Always on podium, winning all but one race.
To secure the slalom title in Åre, Shiffrin would need 71 points more than Hansdotter. If Shiffrin won, then Hansdotter would need a top 8 result to stay in contention for the title.
Speed disciplines
In speed disciplines, the first crystal globe is already decided as Jansrud won the Kvitfjell super-G and extended his points lead over second-placed Paris to over hundred points. In downhill he wasn't able to secure the title in Kvitfjell though. The winner of the Kvitfjell downhill, Hannes Reichelt, reduced the gap to 20 points before the final downhill.
In women's speed disciplines, Vonn leads both downhill and super-G standings. Fenninger reduced her downhill points lead to 35 points whereas in the super-G standings Vonn overtook Fenninger to lead by eight points.
I will write more about the speed disciplines standings before the World Cup Finals in Méribel.
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