Winter Olympics..

Anyone watching? Just saw Chloe Kim, a high school kid from Torrence completely slay women's half pipe.

 

I have watched about 0:00 of the Winter Olympics this year.

 

Watching men’s half pipe. Let’s see what the old dude Shaun White can do

 

Ms Kim pulled off back to back 1080s with style. Well deserved medal.
The men may go for 1440, four rotations while doing two flips....hmmmmm

 

Ha! Crazy to think of him as old when I used to be in awe at him as a little grom in videos like Subjekt Haakonsen and following him and his brother through the park at summit back in the day. I still remember seeing him hit a jump called telephone pole huge and then go on to do a big switch 180 off of another jump called wiseman when he was knee high to a grasshopper.

I’ve been watching it whenever I get a chance, love the olympics...

 

Yes, I am watching. The DH course is a bit tame. Still challenging at 60-70 mph, but only interesting if you know what's happening technically. The wind is playing hell at all of the outdoor events so far.

Cool about the kid from Silverthorne CO (Red Gerard) getting a gold in snowboard slopestyle. Two 17 year old US snowboarders with gold so far.

I had to re-watch Blades of Glory to get me in the mood for the figure skating. Try it. You'll be amped for the Iron Lotus.

I love the Winter Olympics. Most events were invented by drunk Canadians or Scandinavians saying "Hey - watch this. Hand me your cafeteria tray and hold my beer..." Or - "Hmmm, I have skis, and I have this rifle - lets' see what we can do! Hold my beer." Or "Hey, I'll make a big ol' target at the other end of this pond. You take a big rock and see if you can slide it to the target!. I'll get a broom to sweep off the snow... Here, hold my beer."

Fun with friction and the lack thereof!

 

Let me know when the cycling events are on.

 

Maybe one day...

 

Hand me my bike - and hold my beer....!

 

I love the Olympics so much. Especially short track speed skating. In 1991, i was 14 and got to try a season of short track speed skating. It was a thrill hitting the wall following a full sprint gone bad.

 

If this is qualifying..... Can't wait to watch the medals

 

She is repping the South Bay!!!

 

@herzalot when you see these slalom skiers wearing shin pads does it make you think they are pansies?

 

I can't watch...It would just remind me of my brief time in Pusan.

 

I like skiing with shotguns!

 

Absolutely not. You have to wear shin guards, That's where you hit the gate. That and the hand guards. You would be beat to a bruised and bloody pulp if you didn't. I took more than a few in the face too, before I started wearing the now-required chin guard.

 

So I have to ask...if the gate is what you're supposed to ski around (or between), why aren't you penalized for hitting it? Shouldn't the pads be verboten? If the idea is to show your expertise as a skier, or your athletic ability, then you should damn well be able to avoid the gates. If you can't, then you should be disqualified.

But then, Lance.

 

That would be an entirely different sport. The rule is simple. Both feet (and both skis) have to pass between the two poles that make a "gate." (You usually can't see the other pole that makes the pair. There's a pair of blue, then a pair of red, etc). It IS the sport. It's not at all cheating. It's the fastest line down the hill. To say they now have to bring their body completely around the pole without touching it would be to re-invent a completely different sport. It's not cutting corners like a mt. bike race.

If you are watching this slalom and see them as lacking expertise or athletic ability because they are making incredibly precise turns 1/8 of inch away from the gate, while not being disrupted by the slalom pole, I don't know how you define athletic ability. It is far easier to go completely around the pole without touching it - and it's also very, very slow.

In GS, Super G and DH, there is a rectangular nylon gate panel held up by two poles. Try to run that over directly and you will suffer some serious consequences. I suppose the FIS could adapt these types of gates for slalom as well, which would force the approach you are advocating. It would still be an even playing field, but a different form of slalom.

Regardless, running over the gates as close as possible IS slalom technique and as you could see by the DHers struggling to complete the course, it requires incredible athletic ability.

Thank you for your interest, BTW.

 

Well, my thought was, when I was a kid watching slalom skiing I don't remember shin pads. So for those guys the fastest guy was also probably who ever could endure the most pain cutting turns into gates harder.

 

I prefer to smash the gates with a shoulder pad.

 

A history of the flexible slalom "gate" pole:

When I started racing, they used bamboo poles for gates. Our turns were indeed further from the pole.
Here's Ingemar Stenmark in Slalom in the late 1970s/early 80s, He won 86 World Cup races:



We competed in padded sweaters with arm pads and padding on the back of the shoulders. I also added pads over my gloves. Back then, we would hit the gates from our knuckles, up our arms and onto our shoulder blades. Ski pants for slalom often had integrated knee, shin and thigh pads as well. Something like this 1976 photo, but by the 80s, there was more padding on the pants and sweaters.



Bamboo would break or pop out of the snow, resulting in long course holds and a haphazard course set as skiers would still try to ski as close as possible. Gates would fly out of the holes and the gatekepers would have to rush to put the poles back in the ground for the next skier. By about the 20th racer (often out of over 100), the course looked like a war zone of tilted and broken bamboo poles. Out west, ruts were often 2-3' deep by the time the bottom half of the field ran the course.

In the mid 1980s, the "Rapidgate" was born. A spring-loaded plastic pole that would replace the bamboo poles. This changed technique almost immediately. At first, we brushed past them just like bamboo, but then eventually learned we could cross block - clear the gate with the outside hand and shins rather than the inside arm - basically just throwing our feet around the poles while going as straight as possible. All hell broke loose as a result. Early versions of Rapidgates had smooth inserts into the snow, so they popped out of the snow easily and sprawled all over the course. I remember gates tangled in my feet as I skied. Within a few years, the design was improved to screw the gates into the snow. As long as the snow was hard, the gates stayed in the snow and the endless chasing of gates and putting them back in the snow ended. The course stayed clean and fair, other than the ruts that formed with each skier.

In softer snow (like the kind we get out west) the ruts formed more quickly and the gates would still pop out, but the technology has almost solved the course destruction dilemma.

And through it all, the technique of keeping your body going as straight as possible while your feet - and only your feet - went around the pole was being perfected.



The final radical advance in slalom was the advent and acceptance of short skis. In my Masters World Championship race in 1996, I was on 203 cm slalom skis. In my final Masters race in 2003, I was on 175cm skis. The current minimum for men is 165 cm - and that's what they all use. Course sets have gotten much wider across the hill as a result. In the days of bamboo and long skis, slalom courses were set much straighter than then they are now.

BTW - I couldn't have picked a worse time to be a slalom ski racer. From bamboo, to the early horrible Rapidgate designs to the modern design and ski size took a LOT of adjustment in technique and tactics. I basically had to go from what Stenmark is demonstrating in the top photo to what Shiffrin is demonstrating in the lower photo. I never finished that transition.

Thank you for reading.

 

Shouldn't there be a fat bike snow race in the Winter Olympics?

 

Awesome! Thanks for history lesson, Old Timer!

I remember those bamboo poles and the transition to breakaway gates, and occasionally watching from the sidelines or more often from the lift. Mostly I wanted to ski all over the Mountain (Mammoth) or out-of-bounds, find the best snow and ski around natural objects like rocks and trees.. but the racers were impressive in their discipline, control and power. I did a clinic or two but it was hopeless.

Masters World Championships-- much respect!!!

 

The shortest distance between those points is a straight line...

 

I'm pretty sure I could watch this fine example of amateur winter athletics perform everyday......

 

Not as impressive as it sounds. Pretty much just had to enter to qualify, as long as I was a member of USSA with a few decent results that season, and purchased an International License.

I did medal in my age class in slalom, however. Along with two Austrians. All three of us on the same Elan slalom skis. Well not exactly the same. We each had our own pair.

Glory days of celebrated mediocrity!

 

I'm guessing' ya did jus' fine. But please tell me you're boots matched your skis!

 

This photo leaves many questions.
Is that a topless woman in the straw hat? What is the guy with his hands in his face upset about? And why is his girlfriend looking at him with judging eyes?

 

That is one of the most disturbing photos I've ever seen.

No, oddly enough, before I moved to California, I never cared about what my equipment looked like.

Here is Thomas Sykora - a real slalom ski racer circa 1996 hoisting his Elans of the same vintage as mine. His team mate has a pair on display also. I believe I had white Marker Turntable bindings and I think I was using Lange X09 Race boots - blue.



I was only on Elan for slalom and only for two seasons. From there I dabbled in Rossi before landing on Atomic - all purchased with my own money. I wasn't sponsored like @Mikie - the only pro athlete on this site (I think).

 

Love the chick taking a picture.