I was watching the skier and boarder cross yesterday on Eurosport’s, which I love for the carnage and they mentioned that team boardercross is being pushed as a future Olympic event. For those that aren’t familiar it is basically a relay where, when one athlete finishes the gate opens and a second athlete goes. Meh, most of the action occurs on lap one then the second is a bit pedestrian. This got me thinking, what events would you like to see at the games? I like the idea a relay but would go with a mix of skier and boarders, male and female, so female skier, male skier, female boarder, male boarder. Telemark - downhill tele ski racing is awesome, yep I’m biased but I like the side my side nature of the racing, the fact athletes have to do a minimum length jump mid course and the wall turn at the bottom to skating finish makes for a pretty fun event. Dog sledding? Skater cross? Not sure if this is the right name. Ice climbing?
As long as it's timed or measured rather than judged, I'll support it. Will also vote for the return of all spinning around events back to X Games where they belong. Slop style, halfpipe, big air, etc, you can all f*** off home. Figure skating can go and join rhythmic gymnastics and syncro swimming in whatever hell they reside between olympics.
I couldn’t agree more on judged event, too many politics, that and there boring as $&@“! The crushed ice stuff looks awesome!
Tele racing is somewhat OK, since it's racing. But... it also has judges, to penalise racers who use the banned parallelemark turn. Controversy ensues. So I call "minor fail" on tele, but I'd still be happy to see it bump one of the hibbety jibbety events out of the Olympics.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the judging could still be challenged and confirmed by video, my understanding of the rule is a boot distance needs to be between the heel of the front foot and toe of the trailing foot so it’s a simple enough rule.
There is a SKIMO (randonee; AKA ski mountaineering) demo at this year’s Olympics, and it’s set for trial at the 2020 Youth Olympics. https://www.olympic.org/news/climbi...ing-you-need-to-know-about-ski-mountaineering It’s HUGE in Europe, and it’s awesome. No judging, and can be run individually and on a team basis for men and women. It would play a similar role to the marathon in the Summer Olympics. You’ve got to love it for the awesome gear and the visuals alone. Killian Jornet is the current skimo god.
Get rid of the judged component from moguls. No wanky air stuff. No style component. Whoever can get down the mogul course the fastest.
Incorrect. If they call moguls freestyle. It should be. I can picture someone slaying the first set of moguls then throwing a steezy dub 12 blunt grab (landing switch) Then a tail butter 360 to land forwards again off the first mogul of the second set.. Something similar off the second jump.
Split moguls into 2 events: simple speed no tricks, trick moguls. Unfortunately trick moguls without speed is already superseded by freestyle, and speed moguls doesn’t look amazing enough on TV for it to survive as an Olympics event by itself. So unfortunately we’re stuck with this silly combo I think.
The problem lies here - to increase the complexity of the aerial trick section you need to have a non-mogul landing space. Audience expectations from ski cross and freestyle mean that when we see tricks on the moguls event we’re unamazed no matter how good it is. Unfair really. To land in a mogul field you can’t max out the tricks. So we have this current situation of less than awesome tricks, and less than satisfactory racing. I love the tensions intrinsic in snowsports - go too fast on slaloms and you can miss the gates. Go epic enough to win in giant slalom and you’re more likely to crash out. The same with all the jumps and freestyle events. Optimise your speed in biathlon and your shooting accuracy goes down.
I suppose whizzing up Everest is a consolation for Killian. I wonder when we’ll see the first Aussie SKIMO comp? @Kletterer, @Jay Woo - set a virtual Aussie course for us.
Cant Can’t wait to watch this, will be awesome! @Kletterer has Killian raced all the events? He is the type of guys whose training for all his other projects wouldn’t be as specific as the guys focused on racing
There are already lots of European races available to watch online - would be amazing to see in person.
This times a million. As well as being totally awesome to watch, and growing bigger every year, these guys and girls are the fittest humans on the planet. Their measured VOmaxs are continuously setting new records. And yet there's no Olympic event for them! in addition to set courses, I would like to a new ski event where the skiers have to simply summit a peak and get back, fastest time wins. I've done a few skimo events in the Alps, and it's more than just the race. The camaraderie and atmosphere both pre and post race are fantastic. So I looked in to setting something up at Hotham last year - but as usual Resort management weren't interested, the public liability was all too much for them.
@Boodwah, if you were to set up a virtual course somewhere like Hotham, people could submit their GPS data and people could start setting times and we could run a virtual ladder. Eventually we’ll get the trail running crowd in behind it - only a matter of time. Resorts don’t negotiate with individuals, corporates deal with sporting associations. Happy to help. @CarveMan, I reckon if you put rando/ skimo gear on your catalogue, even if you don’t actively stock it (order in on demand) you’d get some sales, what do you think?
Saw a guy training in Austria the other day. He was running up the hill in crampons. We did a lap on the Gondola. By the time we circled round he was nearly at the top and in a sprint. Amazing fitness.
I've thought of a few options, including just doing it outside resort boundaries, say daytime GAR to Twins Summit and back. But most of the events in the US and the Alps are apres ski night events, and they're really fun in the dark with headlamps, and en piste, followed by lots of cheese, saucisson and gluhwein.
Set up a just out of bounds opt-in, once-off like Splitfest, and I reckon it would snowball from there. I’d come last, but I’m in. Once we’ve got proof of concept you can find a sponsor, negotiate with a media house, and with a promotional package as leverage approach the resorts, playing them off against each other. Anything that lifts their profile and increases their visits would incentivise them. The Grollos would get it. With Hotham It’s about finding the right person at the right level of the oganisation to talk to. Merlin is an entertainment company, after all. They would buy in if they had proof of concept. As it is, there’s so much untapped promotional and media opportunity in existing Aus snowsports to tap into. Anyone that can keep costs down in producing outdoors sports competition related media and finding new ways to monetise distribution is going to make a motza. In reality Red Bull dominates here because of gains from scale (multiple sports and locations), and existing market power.
I'd like to see an Olympic version of 9's Wide World of Sport Wacky Winter Weekend, but instead of the money grab at the end of the race, it's medals The aerial comp/pool jump could be good too, minus the judged component, distance and height for the win. Team tube races would also be a blast, team that finishes first with all cling ons still attached wins. Take that you drug cheating nations............................you know who you are.
Oh, you .... I like the figure skating! Now for a new “sport”, they could always bring back ‘ski ballet’. Video, anyone?
There’s always snowmobile racing or snowbiking - should lift ratings in the American midwest and other places you might wish to nominate. Go on you know you want to - pristine, quiet, natural landscape and revheads - what’s not to like?
No it's a little less definitive than that. If you have a judge on every gate, positioned exactly the same position level with the panel, then it works ok. But usually gate judges watch 3 or 4 Gates each. So they aren't positioned properly to see separation between front heel and rear toe. But this whole "Tele turn only" proposition is preposterous. It's like F1 cars allowed on the track with a turbo, but penalised if they actually use it.
For a FIS race there is a maximum of two gates per judge. There is less controversy over gate judging in Telemark than there is over equipment rule changes in Alpine Ski Racing. Having to make Telemark turns on a Telemark race is no less preposterous than having to go through all of the gates in slalom. It's much faster to put on a pair of Downhill Skis and just ski straight didn't the hill, ignoring all of the gates in a good tuck. All that turning is like having turbo in your F1 car and not being allowed to use it.
No doubt if there was an Olympic Tele event they would have one judge per gate and judging would be a non issue. I've timed Tele a few times including nationals. Lots of fun, relaxed atmosphere. Would be happy to see Tele displace any or all of those silly spinning events.
This event is called Team Alpine. I timed one at Whistler Cup last easter, hands down the most exciting ski event I've ever seen. By the time they were down to semi finals there was a crowd of 400+ coaches, parents and athletes making so much noise the racers in the start couldn't hear the countdown beeper but fortunately they had the 'christmas tree' lights to go by. Super close racing with finishes within a few hundredths on several occasions. This event would be fan favourite at the olympics without question. The media would love the 2 male/2 female team angle. There's also some tactical choices to make, with the best seeded team in each matchup choosing their lineup after their opponent does - ie, they can match up racers for best advantage.
Dual slalom would be awesome at the Olympics. Watching Ski cross vs.downhill - The psychology of racing solo on the clock against a field is so different to racing against others - aggression & risk vs. focus & pure technical proficiency. I recall from last season judging school snowsports downhill live - in a large slalom field of 120+ you could immediately see there were really only 4 people in the race. I can imagine them being wiped out in heats by lesser racers - at top pro level this would still happen but at a significantly lesser extent. However, watching ski cross live it’s also clear how the technically stronger athletes immediately pull clear from the field in heats. Still some crazy outcomes though - remember the Sochi quarter finals photo finish? No even snowsports racing in combined events - look at Steve Bradbury’s Salt Lake skating gold - last man standing, not the best.
Dual slalom, meh. Another individual competition. Team Alpine, big thumbs up. About the only time you see it with any regularity is every two years, at the world championships. And now at Whistler Cup, was a massive success for them. But that's U16 athletes, not likely to see much TV coverage.
Yep, everyone chuckles about 'doing a Bradbury', but he worked his arse off to make it to that Games after some very serious injuries over the years previous. And then battled through heats and semis to be in the final with the best in the world. AND stayed in touch through the whole final such that he was across for the win before Ono could scramble to his feet and lunge across. The quintessential illustration of 'never say die' and choosing a strategy that minimises your shortcomings. Much respect.
This is going to be great to watch but I recon it would be better if like the boarder cross relay it was a continual event so the race gate opens when the skier crosses the line at the bottom.
There’s only one thing worse than figure skating, ice dancing! So dull after all the high energy adrenaline events.
