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The Miller/Ligety hips-back technique, physics, and implications (long) - Page 2

post #31 of 39
11/4/06 at 11:39pm
Yes, Thomas had an excellent season. He's a very sound technical skier, across the board.
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post #32 of 39
2/19/07 at 7:55am
I just thought I'd bring this thread back to the top. I suspect there's some interesting discussion as to where slalom skiing has gone this season, as well as Ligety and Rocca's struggles.
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post #33 of 39
2/20/07 at 10:44am

There is no clear favorite...

Quote:
Originally Posted by D(C) View Post
I just thought I'd bring this thread back to the top. I suspect there's some interesting discussion as to where slalom skiing has gone this season, as well as Ligety and Rocca's struggles.
...in WC Men's SL this season, and I think it's for several reasons:

- The course sets are getting more difficult and more offset all the time. I talked to a Fischer rep who said the 2006 Birds of Prey Men's SL was so difficult that the field was reduced to hacking just like the rest of us mortals. Over 50% of the field skis out in SL any more; it's really hard for somebody to be consistently good, because it's pretty much go for the podium or go out.

- The course conditions have been iffy at best this year in Europe, and in some ways, that hurts the SL discipline most...soft snow, big ruts, and so forth, for example. Hard for anyone to win all the time in those conditions.

- Good results in SL tend to be cyclical, and it's often the case that last year's winners are this year's hard luck cases...and the other way around. What has Mario Matt done lately...that is, until he won the SL at the Worlds?

- Because, I think, the course sets are getting more difficult and the equipment is helping racers carve better in the fall line (resulting in higher speeds), slalom is getting to be an incredibly athletic event. It almost doesn't look like skiing any more; it's more like really fast downhill trail running, or something. I predict that the whole approach to training slalom is going to change radically, with the emphasis being on flexibility, agility, and incredible fast twitch ability. A few years back, a lot of juniors in our local program were using Salomon Snowblades and the like to get the feeling of what it's like to ski incredibly quickly foot to foot...I think you'll see that, among other things, as an emerging trend...
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post #34 of 39
2/21/07 at 1:01pm
Thread Starter 

Slalom is getting more difficult

There was some discussion this week from one of the US men's coaches (IIRC) about Bode Miller's current difficulties in slalom, and the extra pounds of muscle he put on for the speed events and how that makes it difficult for Miller (!) to have the agility to navigate the slalom courses as well. (Miller is an exceptional athelete, even by elite standards, and the agility he has shown in his recovery moves puts him in a class by himself.)

The picture of Resi Steigler in the latest World Championship slalom from Fridays skiracing.com coverage

http://www.skiracing.com/index.php?o...932&Ite mid=2

shows the kind of extreme edge angles the racers now have to achieve in slalom, even on the women's side, even for racers not on the podium. Not a lot of margin for error there, but if they back off even the slightest bit, it seems as if they not only won't make the podium--they may not even get a second run.

All that said, Miller's struggles in finishing races (he's been better than Svindal in most of the races where he wasn't a DSQ or DNF) and the rest of the USST's struggles in staying in the course in the latest world championship races suggests there may be something even more risky about many of the Americans' approach (at least outside of slalom) than the approach of some of the other countries' competitors.
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post #35 of 39
2/22/07 at 9:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sfdean View Post
There was some discussion this week from one of the US men's coaches (IIRC) about Bode Miller's current difficulties in slalom, and the extra pounds of muscle he put on for the speed events and how that makes it difficult for Miller (!) to have the agility to navigate the slalom courses as well.

All that said, Miller's struggles in finishing races (he's been better than Svindal in most of the races where he wasn't a DSQ or DNF) and the rest of the USST's struggles in staying in the course in the latest world championship races suggests there may be something even more risky about many of the Americans' approach (at least outside of slalom) than the approach of some of the other countries' competitors.
Is it time for Bode to drop SL? To become a speed specialist who also races GS? To only race SLs when part of a combined and only then when he is in contention for the overall as he is this year? Many benefits to that plan. More rest, less knee strain, course setters in SL are trying to set such that big athletes like Bode get "trapped" anyway. USST could call it the Herman Plan whereby the lad converts to the format of one of his true heroes (he doesn't have many).

- Fossil
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post #36 of 39
2/22/07 at 10:43am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flying Fossil View Post
Is it time for Bode to drop SL? To become a speed specialist who also races GS? To only race SLs when part of a combined and only then when he is in contention for the overall as he is this year? Many benefits to that plan. More rest, less knee strain, course setters in SL are trying to set such that big athletes like Bode get "trapped" anyway. USST could call it the Herman Plan whereby the lad converts to the format of one of his true heroes (he doesn't have many).

- Fossil
Hard to know what Bode will (or even should) do. If I had the skills he does in GS and the speed events, I'd drop slalom in a nano second. But then, Bode didn't get to where he is by taking the easy route or measuring himself by others' standards.

And then there's the small matter that if I gave up slalom (let's face it--I've seen the stills and video) it's not like I'd be giving up much, except an episodic opportunity to whack into sticks. (Which is fun, but the only way other people would spend time watching videos of my runs would be that "crash of the day" thing...) By contrast, Bode Miller was #5 in the world in slalom in the final FIS points list for the 2003/2004 season, and Ron LeMaster wrote a short article ("Bode's Big Secret") about then for Ski Magazine noting that with his radical technique, Bode Miller couldn't be beaten at slalom if he finished without a big mistake. (And finishing, LeMaster noted even back then, would be more of a challenge with Miller's technique.)

IMHO Miller would be less beat up and more rested without slalom, and his DNF's in other events suggests he might even be able to use just a little more training time in the disciplines that don't use single poles. But right now, he's trying to recapture that feel for the courses he had in slalom when he had that discipline nailed, and (for all I know) he could recapture that edge by the next race and go on to dominate for the rest of the year.
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post #37 of 39
2/22/07 at 11:06am
Ok, someone take a whack at Byggmark.
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post #38 of 39
2/22/07 at 5:11pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by midfielder View Post
Ok, someone take a whack at Byggmark.
Uh, OK--

1) He was a DNF in all four races at the world championships after waxing everybody on the other WC slalom courses this year.

2) He's got one of those funny Scandinavian names, where it looks like (A)parents had to buy each vowel, (B) but parents are paid by the state, in one of those wacky socialist thingies, for every consonant their kid has to carry around, and (C) the consonants are heavy, so they sort of roll toward the middle of the word.

e.g:

Kjetil Andre Aamodt (well to do parents sprang for the extra 40 krones just so he'd get first listing in the FIS list and phone book, from the money they made on the start of his first name)

Aksel Lund Svindal (his real secret is balance and phenomenally strong legs from always carrying his consonants on the outside of middle and last names)

Marcus Larsson (doesn't have to wring quite so much out of the helmet logo sponsor, what with the Kronas he takes home from the extra s.)

(3) Unless, of course, you meant by "take a whack" not a gratuitous cheap comment, but one of those Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan freelance-no- waiver knee surgery things or even serious movement analysis.

Sorry. Can't really help you there.
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post #39 of 39
2/22/07 at 6:27pm
My simplistic observation based on the footage presented: Ligety pivots off of the tails allowing him to make as sharp a turn as needed regardless of the ski's radius. By unweighting the front of the ski he is using the small contact area of the skis tail as a pivot.
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