Levi confirmed yesterday. WC Slalom season starts.

Here we are again! 10 days from the ladies' free ski on the race hill in Levi, Finland. Levi is a very interesting place. Getting there is a struggle, it is only light out this time of year for about 2-3 hours. Please notice I said light out, not sun. The sun sort of sweeps over the hilltops above the arctic circle in early November for about an hour and a half. You see this dull, yellowish orb straining to light the earth and warm all the creatures below. It does so feebly and ineffectively. Then, as quickly as it scraped the tree tops, it's gone and it's back to the darkness. Leaving teams to find very creative ways to keep busy. Train a little on the hill, eat some lunch, take a nap, do some conditioning. And then, well then what? Watch some video....ok then what? Exactly why there are more "restaurants" in Levi than any other establishment. Pubs, bars, discos, whatever you want to call them. They are everywhere, and they are packed! Try the Wanha Hullu Poro for starters, and go from there.

There are all sorts of ways to get ready for Levi. The one most teams have settled on is to get themselves to Lapland somehow and train a few days. Get used to the lack of sunlight and the funky schedule. The American boys are going to Taernaby, Sweden. The famous hometown of Ingemar and Anja. They will train a few days and then make the drive across the tundra to Levi. On arrival there it is just train, free ski and race.

Yesterday ,Hans Pieren, the Technical Race Director for the FIS, approved the hill in Levi for the races on the 14th and 15th. He said they would start injecting as soon as possible and be done with the injection by Wednesday night if the weather cooperates. If not, they would have to draw out the process another day or two. This is not a problem and still will leave the crews plenty of time to smooth out the surface and get the protection and finish area all done. According to Hans, they will use 2 million liters of water in prepping the hill. That translates to just over 500,000 US Gallons. That hill will be hard. Combine cold weather, no sunshine and 500,000 gallons of water pressure-injected into the hill, you will get some very hard snow. Ice? Yeah, ok, ice. Ski areas don't like that word so we don't use it. The "Levi Black" trail will be shiny. And as it gets slipped off by the ski school and then the track gets slipped by the athletes, it will be slick. The good thing about the injection is that it will provide a measure of difficulty to an otherwise benign hill.

"Levi Black": Last year, the qualifying margin for the women was 2.16 seconds, for the men it was 1.40 seconds. That is tremendously close racing on both sides. It creates an atmosphere of intensity and risk at the start and on the hill. Everyone is searching for an advantage and trying to find the correct measure of risk. It can also make the course setters try to separate the field a little with tighter course setting or tricky combinations. The thing with Levi, is that it is flat and fairly long, so if you set too many gates it gets monotonous. I still fall on the side of keeping it basic; set to the strength of the hill and let the athletes sort it out.

Levi Black starts out with a long, 20-25 second flat section with a few man made rolls in it. The rolls are fairly sharp and can cause problems (Ted crashed on one of them in 2006). But nonetheless, it is an opening highway where the athletes really do not have to think or plan, just go fast. As they approach 20 seconds or so, there is a sharp break over into the main pitch. it is steep for about 4 or 5 turns but causes little trouble. If the snow is very slick, there can be problems here. For instance, if a given ski company is having problems with grip on ice, you will notice it there. After about 5 turns it gradually flattens and eventually bends to the right to run-out toward the finish.

For the girls, you will see some difficulty in dealing with the break over into the main pitch and dealing with ice on a pitch. There it is really about skiing cleanly with good grip and making good solid turns until you can let loose into the flat section to the finish. For the guys it is somewhat the same except there will likely be a choice from each athlete about where to start risking coming off the pitch. Some will try to push the envelope higher on the pitch, often based on any mistakes that have been made above and feeling pressure from knowing that the qualification margin normally is so small in Levi.

With an easy hill, perfectly fair conditions and fair light (artificial) you will likely see a similar story as in the past. Couple that with a hill that is not stressful for the course setters and there is an even better chance you will see that kind of very close race.