Beaver Creek Review or Carlo Janka is really good.

I am a working ski coach; I also offer my services to ski teams and clubs to help train their staff. I will work with anyone who is interested to help bring their staff up to speed and all working together. So when I write this blog for entertainment purposes and to call attention to my business, it can be time consuming. After skiing with my group all day today at Mission Ridge, I sat down to catch the replay on Universal Sports. The past weekend told us a lot of what we already knew, but also gave us some fun surprises.
BIRDS OF PREY DH BEAVER CREEK
First of all, I want to gloat. Look it over, I don’t have the time but I called a lot of the podiums and the back to front moves. I also told you that Bode would start his ascent up the DH rankings. He was 4th, I think that qualifies. In watching the race I did not see much surprising and the Americans did well if not spectacular. I have to say, I was a little concerned with Nyman’s performance. I thought he would do better, because I thought he would execute more cleanly. I am more concerned, however, with Mac and his mental state. I am a huge fan but I think he occasionally fights demons and he needs to overcome them. You can see it right away when he skis; he goes from athletic to static and stiff.
Janka…I saw it coming and I see it coming like a storm. A strong, steady, consistent storm. He will be here for a long time and there will be difficulty dealing with him.
SUPER COMBI
Barely worth comment, Janka wins…Without Albrecht and Berthod, their 2 best combi guys…the Swiss are still the best at this discipline. Are we or anyone else going to embrace this discipline? Or are the Swiss just better all-around skiers? Are they training specifically for the Super-Combi? Are they selecting 4 event skiers to begin with? Or are they actually making more time in the preparation period to train 4 events. Not necessarily using more days on snow, but spreading their available days among 4 events more effectively and understanding that GS and Slalom training helps a skier in speed events , AND vice-versa.
GIANT SLALOM
The things we knew that came true:
Carlo Janka is going to be tough all season long. Ted Ligety gets 4th place more than anyone in GS, especially at Beaver Creek. He is well acquainted with the “wooden spoon.” Both guys ski GS extremely well and understand inspection and line. They both use the correct movement patterns which allow them great consistency and versatility. They love clean turns and their “feel.” And they never panic or push too hard or risk too much. They have great confidence in their abilities and ski within themselves. They will both challenge in Whistler.
Max Blardone and Davide Simoncelli had to risk too much to keep up on that kind of hill and it made them pay by the end of the day. This does not bode well for them in Whistler.
Kjietl Jansrud is a strong guy and a strong GS skier. He is also big, so hills like this favor him. Watch him through the season and see where he ends up going into Whistler. Watch him carefully on easier hills.
The Downhillers showed their stuff in Beaver Creek and it was obvious that they had an advantage. There is very little chance that Jeffrey Frisch(CAN) would qualify on any other hill in the World Cup. I would expect to be put in his place in Alta Badia if they choose to start him there. The same goes for Adrian Theaux. This also made Hirscher(AUT) finish back in the points. He simply does not have a light enough touch to be versatile on the longer turns, flatter hill and grippier snow.
Things we learned:
Benni Raich still has not corrected his seemingly over-canted, bouncing left foot. It cannot feel good and I can only guess that he does not want to mess with his set-up from week to week and will just deal with it as it is. It has been going on in varying degrees for 8 years.
JB Grange(FRA) hurt himself and it does not look good. The knee injury that happens without a crash is a fairly common injury. He looked fine the whole way, he did bounce once or twice and his knee did “jiggle” a few times. I watched in very slowly and it was tough to tell where it happened. But he definitely reached for his knee and did not take his second run. Hopefully he just bruised it on a gate or on his other boot or something like that. Look for news on this soon.
Ondrej Bank(CZE) is a good skier. And looking at his splits, the Elan ski ran on the flat pretty well at the Beav. It has not always been the case and was often a source of criticism of their GS skis in the past.
Leif Haugen(NOR) has now qualified in 2 consecutive GS races on 2 very different hills. I think his style will actually be better in Alta Badia and Adelboden. I would look at him as a Norwegian Olympic starter come February. And this is straight out of Denver University!
AMERICAN TROUBLE
What happened on the first run to the USA boys in the corner by the second tree-island? I stood there for every Beaver Creek GS held since the race moved away from Park City and it is a very important section. On the first run it is not a place worth risking. It can only hurt you as one little bobble severely hurts your “carry” of speed across the Screech Owl road. Bode made a bobble here and as he always does, he starting risking more after a mistake until he went out again, for good. This is a pattern in Beaver Creek that is disturbing. Jitloff did the same thing. Too much risk for that turn, it does not make any sense. Tommy Ford I can excuse on this one because I am sure he was too amped up. But at the same time, it is the coach’s job in that corner to make CLEAR what is to be done and executed and get buy-in from his guys. And recognize that T Ford is going to be a little amped up and try to cut some corners. Tommy Ford, Tim Jitloff and obviously Bode have the speed, they do not have to take extra risk. Jake Zamansky stayed within himself and he got a second run. Tommy Ford is faster than Jake Zamansky, of this I am sure.


THE SECOND RUN
That was a very exciting race. A lot of very good skiers going at it hard to make a move to the top. The top 4: Janka, Svindal, Raich and Ligety, were all expected to be in the hunt. I was a little surprised by Cuche but in all honesty, he looked like he lacked energy to me. He lacked his normal snap in his transition. He just looked tired. But at 35 years old and having been at high altitude on a very demanding hill for a week, I do not think it is anything to worry about. He has the right skill set for the Whistler GS.
Jansrud executed a lot of clean turns. Almost as many as Janka and Ted. Ted lost the podium on Red Tail jump, getting a little inside there, getting low and losing speed across the flat to the finish. This flat to the finish line is longer than is looks on TV. And with the very cold snow, any mistake on Red Tail can cost a lot of time.
And last, the Fanara crash was huge! Almost as big as Rahlves’ crash in Adelboden. But this was all pilot error. He came in too direct and was sliding his initiation rather than arcing it. He did not point deep enough with his ski tips into the apex and slammed his shoulder and neck into the panel, this yanked him around to the point where his inside ski hooked up in the snow and high-sided him into the B net. That being said, if you watch this crash carefully, a lot of things went right after the panel contact. First of all, the panel came off. Second, the B net stopped him. Third, the bags were there waiting for him if he did go through the second layer of B Net. A nice job by all involved.
A women’s look back at the weekend in Lake Louise will come tomorrow. See you all then!

Beaver Creek GS Preview

The season is just getting started and already we have a new star on the scene, not that he should have been ignoring his presence. He is the reigning GS World Champion. He has won at every level on which he has raced. His name is Carlo Janka(SUI) and I doubt we can keep him off the podium tomorrow either. GS is his bread and butter, always has been.
The Beaver Creek GS has a few characteristics that need to be covered. It is run on the bottom of the Downhill so it is not injected with water. It is not super-slick. Instead it is grippy, or aggressive as the athletes like to call it. It is very grabby with their extremely sharp skis but hard enough that the skis need to be like razors. The very cold weather they have had recently guarantees the snow will remain hard and grippy and very cold through the race tomorrow.
The hill starts at the top of Russi’s Ride and runs to skier’s right of the first tree-island and traverses across to the skier’s left of the second island. This section can be a bit choppy because the hill has been groomed vertically earlier in the week and there are only 2 DH turns here when there are about 16 GS turns. Through the transition of the 2 DH turns there has been very little pressure on the snow and the groom lines still exist. Add to it that it is a fall-away right foot section and it becomes obvious why it breaks away on the right foot in the GS. Always happens, probably always will in Beaver Creek. Then the track bends around the second island and off Screech Owl. You need to carry your speed across the flat to Golden Eagle by making an excellent turn on the back-side of tree-island 2. You’ve done that, gotten a little light on the jump and tuck turns to Golden Eagle and off you go. Things will start to turn more as you approach Golden Eagle and you head off the pitch for 4 very steep turns down into the Abyss which ordinarily has a hard compression at the bottom with a tough right foot delay in the middle of the fall-away. You nail that cleanly and set up the last pitches and find the fall-line, staying ahead of the rhythm until the finish below Red Tail Jump. There is one more, tricky spot there as you come off the little Red Tail Pitch. It is not difficult but you are tired and if the course set turns a little more or a little deep on the flat, one chiseled turn can dump precious hundredths, or even tenths.
The two course setters are Mateo Guadanini(ITA) and Mauro Pini(SUI). Mateo has been around the World Cup as the Italy GS Coach since the 2005-06 season and has set at least 3 GS runs per year since then but has never set in Beaver Creek. Winners of runs set by Mateo include Bode Miller, Ted Ligety and Max Blardone. Joel Chenal has won twice when Mateo has set and both times in Adelboden, which really does not have much to do with Beaver Creek. Mateo’s tendency is to open races setting 26 meters and opens gradually to 30, even on the steeper, more traditional trails like Adelboden and Kranjska Gora. This is Mauro’s first set on the men’s World Cup.
Beaver Creek is easy to set on because it rolls a lot and is not that steep. It also traverses near the top, giving the setter more room to set gates without taking up any vertical meters. So a course setter can set virtually whatever he wants and still make the minimum number. He can set a lot of delays (we have seen as many as 5) and he can open it up a lot. It is not unusual to see 34 meter turns on the flatter areas. The course setter can play around a lot. He can make it easier on the back of rolls and can play with the terrain. The compression coming off the narrow and dark Golden Eagle pitch can cause some trouble if the setter loses focus or decides to be an SOB. Over the last few years, we have seen the setters open with 26 meters on the start pitch, mostly because they want a clue of gate-count before they open it up. But that is not necessary here. If you wanted to open at 30 and go at 30-32 meters the whole way, you could still make minimum.
There is one more characteristic about the Beaver Creek GS. It is on a Downhill track. This gives advantage to guys who have been on the track all week. It always has, on any GS run on the bottom of Downhills. That is one of the reasons we started running Ted and Dane Spencer and Erik Schlopy in Downhill training or in the Super-G in past seasons. We did it mostly to get them used to the snow and visual changes in the hill. This seriously helps and it happens in Bormio every time, and Sestriere last spring as well. AND it will happen again in Whistler! It is a very similar track, on the bottom of the DH. Add the large turn size and watch out for the DH boys, and Ligety who is one of the best tight-set Super-G skiers in the world. Cuche, Svindal, Ligety, Janka, Raich and Miller all ran the DH and/or Combi. Look for all of them near the top of the result sheet in GS.
Other athletes to watch:
Romed Baumann(AUT): He ran the Super Combi and he makes nice, clean, large turns. Very simple in his approach to skiing. He is disciplined.
Kjietl Jansrud(NOR): A big, strong kid born in 1985. He skis all disciplines and can challenge for a high finish here.
Max Blardone(ITA): Max has done very well here in the past but has to ski with a lot of intensity which is one of his trademarks. Not only does he need to do that but he also needs to be almost mistake-free. His margin for error is smaller because he has not been on the hill and because he is a lot smaller than most of the other contenders.
Davide Simoncelli(ITA):Very similar to Max in that he needs to ski with intensity and be clean at the same time.
Marcel Hirscher(ITA): He won the NorAm GS races in Aspen last week but that was a much different story. Those races were on a steeper hill with shorter gate distances and injected snow. All that being said, he is a tremendous talent. Marcel was born in 1989.
CANADIANS:
JP Roy had the best opener in Soelden for the Canadian boys. He can definitely do damage on this hill and could pop another top 10. The other one who should be able to mark his comeback is Francois Bourque. He needs this race to boost his confidence. The distances on the hill will allow him to carve more effectively. Robbie Dixon starts 34 and can definitely do well on this hill. He meets all the criteria.

MORE AMERICANS:
Tommy Ford: Tommy is a 1989 year of birth athlete out of Bend, Oregon. He has displayed excellent GS skills on all surfaces and all types of hills over the last 2 seasons. He has moved up quickly through the ranks and is ready for his big breakthrough. He will score GS World Cup points in this race.
Tim Jitloff: Jit had a great season last year and his best finish was 5th in Sestriere. That hill has very similar characteristics to Beaver Creek so look for him to make something happen.
Jake Zamansky: Jake got it done here last year and needs to do it again to be able to board the plane to Europe with confidence and head into Alta Badia knowing he can do it again.
Andrew Weibrecht: Horse has been on a roll of late and with an 11th today don’t count anything out. It is a tough task to break-in from his late number but he has been skiing well and confidence goes a long way.
The Beaver Creek GS is often a very fun one to watch because the boys go hard from start to finish and they tend to risk pretty hard, even on run 1. The margin is often small between 1st and 5th and also tight to get in the top 30. Look for the boys coming around the 1st tree-island, where they tend to run the line out a little and try to pull it back in the traverse. Sometimes that low line just pulls them too much, causing some big crashes. If they go a little too straight off of Screech Owl; they can kill all their speed for the flat. And a too-late line around the second island can cause a similar outcome on the flat because they do not have enough hill to get their speed back at that point. Too straight off Golden Eagle also causes trouble for that pitch, often sending the boys off-course. From there down it is hammer time.
The all-important podium prediction: Janka, Ligety, Cuche.

Have fun watching the boys get after it. Then they pack up and head for Val d’Isere! It is hard work to get from Colorado to Val d’Isere. Get back to the hotel, pack up the cars and vans, drive to Denver, wait to check-in with all the other teams, get to the hotel late, stuff down a late dinner, get to bed. Then it’s up early and on the plane through wherever. Could be Toronto, Chicago, Atlanta, DC, Frankfurt, depending on your airline. Then the US boys will land in either Zurich or Munich and make the long drive to Val d’Isere. Last year I drove from Munich to Val d’Isere after this race in a blinding snow storm with a portion of the Autobahn closed. I had to hit the back roads just after Geneva for about 60 kilometers. All the way up the mountain road to Val d’Isere. Arriving there around 11 PM, 10 hours after I left Munich.
And last, congrats to the North American ladies in Lake Louise. Lindsey for her continued dominance of that hill, Emily Brydon in 3rd, Britt Janyk in 8th, Alice McKennis for her first top 10, Stacey in 11th, Julia 12th, Vanderbeek in 13th, Larisa Yurkiw in 16th!, Leanne in 23rd and Chlesea in 25th. That is a big day, girls and a lot of points for both teams! Enjoy.