All,
Sorry for the publication delay. Here we are at the midway point of the program, and at least the third round of building or rebuilding our snow pack. Thank goodness for snowmaking technology and people to manipulate the output. Thanks also to those of you scheduled for Sunday who co-operated with our crowd control requirements last Saturday. Sunday turned out to be an excellent training opportunity, with better snow conditions than Saturday and very few participants on hand.
SCHEDULE
We will be training Saturday and Sunday at 0930 on Birches. Back to GS for the first time in a while! Watch the board at the National Chair for any updates. We expect to have timing set for both sessions.
GDHL GS is at 1:00 pm Sunday on Big John. (My apologies to those to whom I said last weekend that there wasn’t a race this weekend. That would be next weekend.) Interclub is at Osler on Saturday afternoon. It is SL and we look to see whether we can repeat last year’s dominance of that event. There is no World Cup this weekend, so we will have to make our own excitement.
Friday training was GS in the morning and afternoon, if you want to know what you missed, or were there and wondered why it was so hard to cross-block.
Looking ahead to the Family Day weekend when there are two GDHL races scheduled, please let us know if you have thoughts about training. We are considering having dual SL on Saturday morning to give more people an opportunity to brush up before Saturday afternoon’s final SL of the year.
GDHL / INTERCLUB
The year’s big race weekend didn’t disappoint, with primo conditions and courses for both the Super G and looong SL. Saturday saw Jeff Sutherland (4th), Kevin Gust (7th), Ross Kappele (8th) and Peter Rockandel (9th) all in the top 10 and (cue trumpet fanfare) Mark Reidl hurtling to 12th from his 44th seed. Yes Randy, it is so (and Trent even more so)! Randy 95, Trent 87, Randy +3 overall. Other big movers included Rob Cassels (19th from 32nd), Jerry Patten (24 from 41), Ray Murakami (31 from 48), Ian Struthers (36 from 57), Dean Beallor (38 from 63), Rob Bruce (44 from 76), Michael Thompson (47 from 94!), Greg Grinter (49 from 70), Tiana Boyman (53 from 75), Alan Shaw (57 from 93) and Dave Macdonald (64 from 90). Overall, a very tight race at the upper end, with one second separating 11th from 26th.
Sunday Jeff Sutherland and Peter Rockandel led the way in 3rd and 4th following Greg Cavers' solid win, but Randy rebounded to tie for 5th (Randy 104, Trent 97, Randy +10 overall after 4). Patrick Pedlar (8) and Allan LaChance (9) also broke into the top 10. Glenn Blaylock led the movers again in 13th from 33rd seed, while Ian Latimer was 18th from 27. Ian Struthers capped a big weekend by cutting almost two seconds off his first run to finish 24th from 57th. Bill Bigelow was 25 from 46, Stephanie Biddell was 28 from 56, Tiana Boyman made the first page at 43 from 75, Alan Shaw was 46 from 93 and Michael Thompson was 53 from 94. Alan and Michael seem to be running neck and neck for The Jeffersons award (moving on up to the big time).
Meanwhile, Sunday afternoon's Interclub race saw another winning Craigleith performance, this time by 23 points. Results are here. Tiana Boyman, Greg Grinter, Bill Bigelow, Glenn Blaylock, Jeff Sutherland and Greg Cavers among our readers won their categories for Craigleith.
SELF IMPROVEMENT / LIVE IN HOPE
I was asked last weekend whether there is a sweet spot for hitting a slalom gate with your pole guard when cross-blocking and didn’t give a very good answer. After further consideration and consultation, I would say that the point of cross-blocking is not to be punching at the gates with a view to hitting them in a particular way. Punching leads to reaching, which leads to bad rotation, which leads to visiting spill zones. (And the 30mm gates we’ve been given lately are big enough to punch back!) The point is to be holding your pole in a “defensive” position so that that you clear the gate if it’s going to hit you, and don’t wave around if it’s not. Clearing should be done with the pole shaft. The guard is just to deflect the gate if it rides up the pole shaft and would otherwise hit your hand. Watch the Ligety vimeo clip to see how his pole is positioned. His turns are consistent enough that contact is in a pretty similar place each time, but he is positioned for any eventuality.
I saw a racer in the finish area last Sunday with two shattered and mostly missing pole guards. Not sure of the story, but after suffering the same problem a few years ago I stopped screwing in the top of my guards and the extra flex seems to have made them last longer.
As we return to GS, here is a still picture of Marie-Michelle Gagnon rounding a gate, that I think offers a good display of technique. See how the downhill leg is extended, inside leg is contracted but remains parallel. Edge angle obviously something we can aspire to. Upper body separation (aka coiling or counter-rotation) is very obvious, as the gate has been taken with the back of the shoulder. Vision appears to be focused down the hill, probably on the next red gate, not the immediately approaching blue gate. Right (downhill) hand is not driving through. Upper body is forward to maintain weight on downhill ski.
FASHION NEWS
Carrie’s Saturday outfit (not pictured) was the Project jacket in Taxi (yellow...like a cab) and Splash (blue) pants. The attached picture from the finish area at the looong slalom shows Sunday’s Artemis jacket in Splash (coming to a store near you in 2014) with Flirt (aka pink) pants. The other attached picture was also taken in the finish area. Those depicted are invited to identify the details and vintages of their raiment. Extra credit is given for imaginatively naming colours.
DIVERSIONS
HOW TO START A FIGHT – Someone’s wife (to be clear, not mine!) sat down next to him as he was flipping channels. She asked, "What's on TV?" He said, "Dust." And then the fight started...
HOW TO START A FIGHT - Someone else’s wife was lamenting her difficulty in maintaining the recommended body mass index. Her husband said “I’ve noticed that married women are usually heavier than single women. Why is that?” She replied “Single women come home, see what's in the fridge and go to bed. Married women come home, see what's in bed and go to the fridge.” And then the fight started...
JWM