Preparations for World Equestrian Games

HD production trucks in the TV compound

Single-mode fiber pedestal in the TV compound

Denise: "GRFX Chick"

Daktronics ProStar in Outdoor Stadium

I was asked by "TV Producer" to come to the Rolex Kentucky 3-Day Event for a few days to attend production meetings for the 2010 World Equestrian Games.

My involvement with WEG has been a long and winding road. Originally, I put in a bid to be the overall provider of all timing & scoring + TV graphics. WEG decided to go with a Dutch technology provider, which was a disappointment on many fronts. I didn't really understand, amongst other things, why WEG management would even consider a non-US provider in these difficult economic times. But politics work in mysterious ways. You smack your head up against the office wall a few times, curse a bit, and move on.

After "Dutch Provider" did the World Cup Final in Las Vegas last year with "TV Producer" as the host, I was asked to come back into the mix. "TV Producer" has decided not to take "Dutch Provider"'s graphics for WEG. "TV Producer" will do the whole event (almost 150 hours of live TV, plus 4 two-hour shows on An American Network) via interfaces, D.P. will provide only data. And Interfaces R Us. So, another twist of fate, and I'm back booking flight tix to Lexington Airport.

WEG and Kentucky Horse Park are a somewhat odd public / private partnership, which is usually a recipe for disaster. But in this week's meetings, I was impressed with much of the infrastructure the State of Kentucky has provided. On paper, the fiber backbone (actually two BBs, one for TV and one for networking) is a nice design. I see a couple of problems, and a couple of areas where I would have done things differently, but the plan will work. I was pleasantly surprised with the expertise of the infrastructure team people from the State.

Should be an interesting September.

I really enjoy working for "TV Producer". The company is run by two really cool, unusual and talented guys, the production team is populated by lots of other cool and talented people, and the general competency of the whole outfit is WAY high. The workplace takes on almost a family atmosphere, which stands in stark contrast to many production outfits, in which the atmosphere can be toxic. Those of you who work in TV know all about The Screamers; there's none of that at "TV Producers".

WEG will be a long and difficult event, we'll be on the air 4-8 hours a day for 16 days, so working in a nice atmosphere with laid-back people will make things a lot easier.

Tracks of the Rare Alpine Skunk Spotted at Snowbasin

Yesterday I went alpentouring on Strawberry at Snowbasin, which has been closed for the season for about a week. Beautiful, cloudless day. Warm. Not a soul in the same ZIP code. No tracks in the snow, except for the paw prints of a few critters.

The whole time I was up there, I kept thinking about the old "Last Run" photo-essay on the last page of SKI magazine. Every month, they'd publish some irony-laced photo on the inside of the back cover, many dealing with desperate skiers dealing with the end of the ski season. I wouldn't know anything about that.

The other thing running through my mind was the memorable K2 ski print ad from a few years back, which showed a guy camped in the parking lot of Copper Mountain in the middle of the summer, alone with his SUV and a tent, reading a copy of SKI magazine while sitting in a lawn chair. Shirtless. His ski boots and a freshly-tuned pair of K2s sat on the tarmac beside him.

I toured around for over 5 hours in a t-shirt. Got some really fun turns in the untracked snow, which was, admittedly, pretty slushy.

Discovering alpentouring whilst marooned in Austria in the winter of 2004 has enlarged my repertoire, enhanced my fitness, and increased my enjoyment of skiing immeasurably. It has opened up a whole new world to me.

The runout at the bottom of Strawberry, named "Last Chance", was beyond slushy. It was downright melted. But I snapped the perfect shot for SKI magazine's Last Run.

My George Clooney Moment at 37,000 Feet

Today I flew aboard American Airlines flight 2527 from Dallas to Salt Lake City. As the plane was on initial climb, I reached into the seat pocket in front of me and grabbed a copy of "Celebrated Living", American's First Class-only inflight magazine. Andy Garcia was on the cover.

CL is considerably more upscale than American's regular inflight mag, advertising $50,000 wristwatches, and Aston Martins, and all sorts of ostentatious stuff I really have no desire to own.

I flipped through it idly, waiting for the seat belt sign to go off so I could whip out my phone and listen to a couple of NPR podcasts I'd downloaded at the gate. An article entitled "Global Rut Busters", about exotic vacations in places like Belize and Norway, caught my eye. Seemed interesting. As I flipped toward the end of the article, on page 56, I saw two photos of......me.

More precisely, not so much as photos of me, but photos in which I was one of several subjects. But it is definitely me, I've seen both photos before, they were done in a professional photo shoot about 6 or 7 years ago.

I guess guys like George Clooney and Lance Armstrong get used to seeing themselves in that type of context, but not me. I have, on occasion, appeared in a few sports and computing magazines, but I always knew beforehand. This one, I had no idea. I just ran across it out of dumb luck.

In a small, lame way, it was pretty cool.

My good friend Donnie Arnoult, a former elite professional bicycle racer, owns a bike shop called Maui Cyclery, as well as Go Cycling Maui, which is sort of fantasy camp for bike racer wanna-be's. Go Cycling Maui made CL's "bucket list", and the article was accompanied by two photos showing the Maui Cyclery racing team riding, as a group, down our exotic-looking roads.

It's easy to tell which rider I am, because on the day those photos were shot, I was wearing a Briko "Twinner" helmet, which are rare in the US, and have a distinctive shape.


I was really happy for Donnie, because the article spoke in glowing terms of Go Cycling Maui, and it listed the shop's phone number. I'd guess, pulling a figure out of my ass, it was about $40,000 or $50,000 of free advertising. As soon as the plane landed, I called him and told him all about it.

I grabbed 3 or 4 copies and will FedEx them out to him tomorrow, since I'm on the road and won't see him until the end of the month.

This Is One Clever Teenager.

link http://www.thesouthbutt.com/

Now THAT is clever.

As a personal aside, I've always thought North Face stuff was crap, at least as far as skiwear goes. I own none of it. The gold standard, as far as I'm concerned, are Spyder and Descente. FlyLow is my favorite for more backcountry-oriented apparel.

Quote of the Day

"If it flies, floats, or fornicates......rent it".

- Felix Dennis, author and billionaire.

From the "Do as I Say, Not as I Do" Department

Bill Marolt, CEO of the US Ski Team, VP of FIS, and the guy who threw Bode Miller off the US Ski Team for partying too much, was arrested yesterday in Park City for DUI.

Karma can be a bitch.

Nice mug shot, Bill.

And You Thought "Like A Bolt From The Blue" Was Only An Expression

This unfortunate guy was just going out for a jog. Sheesh.

Don't Forget the Paralympics

I've never understood why the Paralympics aren't held before the Olympics instead of after. Holding them before would be such a perfect testing platform for transportation, volunteers, scoring & timing, accommodations, food service, and so forth. By the time the Olympics are over, the public is all Olympic-ed out, a lot of the volunteers don't show up because they've used up their vacation time or are just plain exhausted, the local natives are sick of all the inconveniences, and so forth. It gives short shrift to the para athletes.

If anything, the Paralympics is a better show than the Olympics. The paras may not have the star power of NHL players or the odd Apolo Ohno / Lindsey Vonn crossover star, but 100% of the para athletes are there simply because they love to play. None are eyeing an appearance on Jay Leno or a bigger endorsement contract. They just want to compete for the love of sport, which is the basic principle upon which the Olympics was founded, a principle largely forgotten at the Olympics.

The ski racing conditions at Pissler during the Olympics were appalling, as you know from my earlier posts. The result from almost every ski race was compromised by terrible weather and slushy snow. And THAT was in mid-February, in the heart of winter. This week, the Paralympics are trying to get off their ski races with Spring fast approaching, and it is not going well. Several training runs were canceled this week by fog in The Sewer, and today's DH was postponed by (shockingly) more fog in The Sewer.

The good news is that nobody will ever have to deal with the challenges of ski racing at Pissler again in our lifetime. Word among the ski racing community is that the Olympic ski races were such a disaster due to the coastal weather and the fog that Alpine Canada will never hold another national-level race there.

But of course, that's what everyone said in 1998 after the 3rd straight attempt at holding a World Cup at Creekside ended up without a racer leaving the gate.

Those Wacky Downhillers

Eric Guay of the Canadian team, whom I predicted for Olympic greatness but who came up just short (two 5th places), won a very unlikely SG crystal globe yesterday at the World Cup finals in Garmisch. An almost impossible sequence of events needed to occur in order for Guay to win the globe, which included Guay winning the race, Michael Walchhofer either crashing or finishing way out, and Svindal not winning either. All of the above occurred, and Guay has a nice new shiny crystal globe for the airlines to smash on the way back to Montreal.

The Canadian team is extraordinarily stocked with talent and extraordinarily well-managed. It is, unfortunately, a testament to the flukey nature of Olympic skiing that they got skunked in Pissler. It's nice to see a Canadian take home a globe. The team deserves that, and more, after a very difficult and disappointing year in which several of their best medal hopes sustained season-ending injuries before the season really got started.

I think this may be Walchhofer's last season. He hasn't had a very good year, and he's got the look of a guy who has lost his jazz for speed. He's got two young kids, and I can see him calling it a career, going back to sleepy little Altenmarkt-Zauchansee to work in the family business. He's a great skier and has enjoyed almost every success possible to a ski racer, so I'm sure quitting looks pretty good to him right now.

photo by GEPA

Marco Buechel of Lichtenstein, for whom the SG WC Final was his last race before retirement, did something typically wacky for a downhiller to celebrate his retirement. He didn't quite do a "Full Rainer Schoenfelder" (ski buck naked), but fairly close. He ran the SG in a coat and tie, in bermuda shorts, and stopped midway down the run to chat with some fans. If my group had been doing the timing, Buechel's run would have been "LIMITS OFF!". Those of you who have been in the timing tower for World Cup know what I'm talking about.

Interesting Discussion on Sochi

To follow up on my earlier post on Sochi as a winter Olympics venue, this is an interesting interview, on NPR, with a Russian travel agent.

link

It sounds like a monumental clusterfuck in the making. But after Whistler's weather catastrophes,, how bad can it be?

Tsunami Warning Canceled

The tsunami hit Maui, but it was only a few feet high. My friend Jeff watched it from upcountry through his powerful artillery spotting scope (same model as I've got in my bedroom window). He reported that Kahului Harbor had some boiling, a surge, and then a big silt cloud washed in through the breakwall, but there was no damage.

When I talked to him on the phone, he was hard at work at his propane grill, cooking up brats for a hastily-thrown tsunami party he'd put together for several groups of friends seeking refuge at his house (elevation 1890 feet above sea level) from their beachfront homes. He was dealing with the crisis in the traditional Hawai'ian way - throw a party, drink a lot, cook up some grinds. If you're going to die, might as well die tipsy and on a full stomach.

A few minutes later, he texted me to report a serious crisis - he was running low on beer.

Tsunami !!

The Llaima volcano, near Chillan (the epicenter of yesterday's earthquake), snapped from the Villarica volcano near Pucon. The area is thick with active volcanos.

Weird timing. I'm sitting in the Admiral's Club at DFW, on my way home from Utah. The time is 10:34 CST. Last night a massive earthquake (1000 X more powerful than the one which flattened Haiti 6 weeks ago) struck the ski town of Chillan, Chile. As a result of this quake, in about 5 hours, a tsunami is supposed to hit the Hawai'ian Islands, where I am, coincidentally, headed.

The good news is I have to change planes @ LAX, and by the time I arrive at LAX, the situtation on the ground in Hawai'i will be clear. The tsunami will have come and gone. The early modeling data show a 9-12 foot tsunami hitting Maui. Ordinarily, 9-12 foot waves would result in boredom warnings being issued, as in winter, 40-50 foot waves are common. However, tsunami waves act differently than normal waves, as they sometimes surge for 15-20 minutes rather than 15-20 seconds. A tsunami that size could cause some serious damage.

Fortunately, my house is 3,450 feet above sea level on the North slope of the Haleakala volcano. Unfortunately, my car is parked at Kahului Airport, which is about 25 feet above sea level. Another potential problem is that the island's two power plants and sewage-processing plants are also located about 25-50 feet above sea level. And finally, all the airport runways in the state of Hawaii capable of handling large aircraft are also located less than 50 feet above sea level. The airports on Moloka'i and Lana'i are quite a bit higher, but they have very short runways designed only for small inter-island aircraft.

Should be an interesting day.

In another case of strange coincidence, I was in Chillan, Chile (the epicenter of the earthquake), about 6 months ago. I went skiing all over Chile in August of '09, and not only did I visit Chillan, but the best skiing of the trip was in a resort called Nevados de Chillan, which is about 25 miles from there. I fear the Nevados de Chillan ski resort is now a pile of rubble, but I'm sure I will find out soon exactly what has happened there.

Skunk tracks in Nevados de Chillan. August, 2009

Volcanic vents near the top of Nevados de Chillan

The Mighty Skunk, high atop Nevados de Chillan.

Womens GS; Will Sochi Be Another Pissler?

After watching one racer in today's womens GS Run 2, it was clear that Atle and the jury are no longer asking themselves the usual questions about the race conditions.

The normal questions would be:

1. Will it be a fair race?

2. Are the conditions above minimum?

3. Are the conditions going to get anybody hurt?

Instead they are asking themselves one and only one question: "Is running the race in these atrocious conditions worse than canceling the race and leaving Pissler with races canceled, for the first time in Olympic history?"

In GS, question 3 isn't nearly as critical as in the "speed" disciplines. That's not to say racers don't get hurt in GS crashes (they do), but GS crashes rarely are caused by bad conditions. The speeds and forces involved just aren't that high.

Today, obviously, the answer was "no", so they ran on a slushy Slurpee-slope with 15 seconds of the course completely socked in by fog. I'm sure, at this point, even the racers just want to get the Orympical Games over with, get the hell out of Pissler, and never see the fucking place again. Trust me on this - they won't. There will never be another World Cup level race held there. Probably Alpine Canada won't even hold Nor-Ams (equivalent to AAA baseball) there. Ostensibly, after the 3rd straight failure to get a World Cup race off in 1998, Pissler was off the schedule forever, but Vancouver getting the Olympics started the entire clusterfuck all over again. Everyone who has ever been involved with an (attempted) race at Pissler knew the Olympics was going to be a Gong Show, and Pissler did not disappoint. It sucked.

A clever television sleight-of-hand took place during run 2. I'm almost sure it wasn't intentional (nobody from the host broadcaster is that smart), but it worked well. I noticed it, but anybody who doesn't know the sport well probably didn't, so I will explain it.

In GS races (actually, in all race disciplines except slalom) the "start interval" (time between racers) is very tightly controlled. It is published in a document called the "Daily Race Program", and everybody on the hill has a copy. Often, this interval will change for safety, theatrical, and TV reasons at various places on the start list. For example, racers 1-15 may start at a 1:45 interval, then racers 16-30 at 2:15, then 31-end at 0:45. There is a timing device called a "start clock" which is programmed with these intervals, and the clock counts the racer down in the start gate with both an audible and a visible signal. That's the BOOP BOOP BOOP BEEP sound you hear when a racer is starting. A racer doesn't have to start exactly dead-on the start interval; the racer can legally start any time between -5 seconds and +5 seconds. For example, the start interval is 1:15, racer 14 is scheduled to leave at 12:12:00; racer 14 can legally start at any time between 12:11:55 and 12:12:05. The next racer (15) then can legally start at any point between 12:13:10 and 12:13:20. It's primarily a safety thing. If a racer hooks a gate and breaks it off, the nearby course worker has a Daily Program and knows it will be X:XX before the next racer arrives; if he can fix the gate within that interval and be out of the way before the next racer arrives, he does it. If not, he calls the referee on the radio and asks for a delay ("stop-start") of one or more intervals.

What happened today is the racers were running the course in 1:15, and the start interval was also 1:15. The socked-in "Sewer" section of the course started at about 8-10 seconds into each racer's run, and lasted about 12-15 seconds. On TV, what you saw was this:

- Racer 10 finishes.
- TV follows Racer 10 as she stops: 5 seconds.
- TV follows Racer 10's reaction: 10 seconds.

(HI MOM!
LOOK AT MY SKIS!
I SKI ROSSIGNOL!
ROSSIGNOL!
ROSSIGNOL!
ROSSIGNOL!)

- Racer 11 is already 15 seconds into her run. Instead of going to #11 live, TV rolls tape of Racer 11 starting (BOOP BOOP BOOP BEEP) and negotiating the first few gates: 15 seconds.
- Just before Racer 11 disappears into the fog on the replay, TV switches to Racer 11 live.
- At this point, Racer 11 is about 30 seconds into her run and is through the pea soup section, so the viewer never really sees the skier doing her impression of David Paterson.

TV avoided the embarrassing effect of Run 1 yesterday, where every single racer spent 20 seconds in a fog so thick that it looked like the camera was following a cotton ball being blown through a sandstorm.

OK, enough about Womens GS for now.

My friend and esteemed colleague The Big Guy asked a very good question today:

"Enlighten us regarding the 2014 location: Krasnaya Polyana. Looks like another Vancoober/Whizzler to me.
Do tell!"

Well. Ahem. I've never been to Krasnaya Polyana, but I've talked to a few colleagues in the alpine race biz who have (including two representatives from FIS). At this point there are virtually no answers. It's all questions.

First of all, the current resort known as Krasnaya Polyana was, during the review process, deemed unsuitable for an Olympic Games (how much worse than Pissler could it be?). So, an entirely new venue is being built about 20 minutes down the road, at another mountain. Construction has not yet started. The Olympic courses are still being laid out. At the moment, there is nothing at the Olympic venue except a couple of office trailers.

Giving Sochi the benefit of the doubt, this sounds sketchy, but is not necessarily a bad thing. In 1988, for example, the original plan for the Calgary Games was to run the alpine events at Lake Louise, one of the best and most consistent World Cup venues for the past 25 years. Commercial problems took LL off the table, so the Calgary Games organizers designated a virgin, uncut mountain near Calgary (Nakiska) as their alpine site. They cut trails, installed lifts, built a venue from scratch. It wasn't a disaster, but it wasn't a great venue. After the Olympics concluded, they ripped out all the lifts except one and nobody skied on the Olympic courses ever again. Basically it took about a hundred million dollars to find out that Nakiska was a shitty place to put a ski resort.

Vladimir Putin is an alpine skiing fanatic, and he has promised the IOC that Krasnaya Polyana will get whatever resources (financial and otherwise) it needs to become a world-class venue in plenty of time for 2014. Since Putin has very few people (none, actually) to answer to, his promise carries, er, a lot of promise.

However.

Unlimited money, unlimited political power, and tens of thousands of troops may not be able to overcome some serious environmental challenges presented by Krasnaya Polyana.

To wit:

1. The current Krasnaya Polyana resort claims an average seasonal snowfall of 1.5 meters. That's about 60 inches. That's really, really bad. That's about the same as, say, Allentown, Pennsylvania, which is hardly a skiing mecca. Off-the-scale bad for a ski resort. Snowbasin, Utah (for example), site of the 2002 Olympic downhill (my home resort where, coincidentally, I skied today in 10" of fresh powder, hee hee hee), averages about 400 inches a year. Snowbird, a small resort about an hour from Snowbasin, averages almost 600 inches. Snowbasin and Snowbird, like all ski resorts in Utah, have "The Greatest Snow On Earth" (it says so right on the Utah license plates). One of the worst resorts in the American West in terms of snowfall is Sun Valley, Idaho. Sun Valley averages 220 inches a year. So, to summarize, the snowfall is Sun Valley is pretty crappy, but it's about 4x more than Krasnaya Polyana.

Lots of snow doesn't guarantee a good Olympic venue. Before the 2002 Games, we were all terrified that the Olympic events at Snowbasin would be snowed out. Both World Cup "test events" (in 2000 and 2001) and 2 of 3 "Nor-Am" test events at Snowbasin leading up to the 2002 Olympics were snowed out. It sounds counterintuitive, but when you wake up and there's 28" of fresh powder on the racecourse, you can't race. It's too dangerous. The new snow actually has to be removed from the course, as if the race course was a sidewalk. The course workers actually use shovels and snowblowers to get the new snow OFF the course. But that takes time, since a downhill course is about 5km in length. Imagine shoveling a sidewalk that's 5km long and 60m wide. I used to love working races at Snowbasin, because the chances were overwhelming that I would spend the entire week skiing fresh pow and not working one damn bit. Miraculously, Snowbasin got no significant snowfall during the 2002 Olympics, thus proving that God is, in fact, a Mormon.

2. The altitude at the base of Krasnaya Polyana is 540m / 1700 feet. Bad. Altitude means cold and dry, which is good for snow. The base area at FuckOffler is 650m / 2100 feet. So in other words, Krasnaya Polyana is LOWER than Pissler. GAH!

This, potentially, can be worked around. Krasnaya Polyana has a vertical drop of 1688m / 5500 feet. That's about the same vert as FuckOffler, and that's an awesome vertical drop for a ski area. Even mighty Kitzbühel has a vert of "only" about 3300 feet. Vail is about the same. The problem with Pissler is that the finish area (Creekside) is at the very bottom of the mtn, where it is always raining and foggy. If VANOC had built the Pissler race venues at the TOP of the mountain, they wouldn't have had the worst Olympic alpine events in Olympic history during the past three weeks. It's not impossible to build race venues at the top. Expensive, yes. Impractical, yes. But not impossible. Breckenridge, for example, has its race course on Cimmarron, which is about a mile (via ski trails) and 2500 vertical feet above Breck village. The Cimmarron start is up at around 12,000 feet. The finish of the GS is at about 11,500 feet. The village is at about 9,000 feet (note - the town of Breckenridge, at the base of the Breckenridge ski area, is about a half-mile vertically above the TOP of Pissler. That's why Breck is one of the best places to ski on the planet, and why Pissler fucking sucks). Building race venues at the top of a mountain creates a lot of problems with respect to getting spectators up there, and dealing with TV cabling, but it's nothing that a shitload of money can't solve. I'll go out on a limb here and opine that Mr Putin can solve those problems very nicely, should he decide doing so is prudent.

3. Ocean. Pissler gets slammed by fronts coming off the nearby Pacific Ocean. Sochi is, like Vancouver, right on the Black Sea. Krasnaya Polyana, like FuckOffler, is just inland. The Black Sea is relatively small, and not in the path of the prevailing upper-level winds, so the proximity of the Black Sea to Krasnaya Polyana isn't as ominous as the proximity of the Pacific Ocean to FuckOffler.

So that's what I know about Krasnaya Polyana. It has the potential to be another raging clusterfuck of an alpine venue, but a lot of questions remain before I'm ready to throw in the towel on 2014.

Gong Show At the Womens GS

The Pissler weather turned the womens GS into a Gong Show. I've never seen such a fucked-up race at the World Cup level. The fog in "The Sewer" was so thick that the first run never should have taken place. Between the mushy, slushy course falling apart and the 20 completely invisible gates in the middle of the course, that race was about as much of a comic farse as a race can be at this level. Fortunately, Atle had the balls to at least pull the plug on the 2nd run. The pressure on him to try to get the race off must have been crushing, as Pissler is running out of time. The possibility that the Olympics will end without the ski program being completed, the possibility of which I blogged a week ago, is becoming very real.

I watched Vonn's and Mancuso's first runs. The rule is you've got to be able to see two gates ahead; to me it looked like they couldn't see two meters ahead at mid-course. Of course, in typical Pissler fashion, it was perfectly clear down at the finish. The typical Pissler fog sits like a big steaming pile of dog shit about 300 vertical feet above the finish.

Normally, at this level, the "start interval" (time between racers) would be set so that each racer would be either totally finished or 2-3 gates from the finish before the next racer started (at least for the "top seed"). But because the Pissler piss was so thick, Atle sped up the start interval (perfectly legal and not controversial at all) to 1:00 for a 1:15 run. At a normal race, when Vonn hit the nets, the next racer (Mancuso) would still have been standing in the start. A "stop-start" could have been called to repair the gate Vonn broke, and to cart Vonn's carcass off the course. Unfortunately, with the tightened start interval, when Vonn hit the nets Mancuso was already 15 seconds into her run. Having "yellow flag zones" is also normal, and Mancuso was flagged just before she got to the site of Vonn's crash because the course wasn't safe there. Mancuso stopped, which she is obligated to do. Mancuso then had to be zapped back up to the start on a snowmobile, and then she was re-run on partially burned skis. The psychological factor and additional stress definitely didn't help Mancuso, nor did running 13 racers later on a course that was already falling apart in the rain and warm temperatures, nor was the fact that she'd already run most of a run, and was winded. The whole episode was just a cascading series of Pissler-caused fuckups, but there was nothing against the rules nor even that unusual. Simple bad luck. It's ski racing, it's an outdoor sport, it happens all the time, although not normally to racers in the top seed. Mancuso whined on TV about all the cards stacked up against her, but she should remember that a humongous dollop of extraordinarily good luck got her the DH silver, so what goes around comes around. That's ski racing, and ski racing at Pissler introduces far more luck - both good and bad - than normal.

Normally, the first run would be thrown out and the race re-scheduled for another day. That's really the fair thing to do. But I think everyone involved realizes that they are in real danger of the womens GS being canceled, so the jury allowed the first run to stand, and will attempt to race run 2 tomorrow (Thursday).

Tomorrow (Thursday) is supposed to be exactly like today, so there's a very real possibility that the 2nd run will be postponed. Again. Based on my past experience with racing in Pissler fog, they've only got one shot, and that's to run it first thing in the morning with no delays. Once they delay the start to see if the fog burns off (it won't) or suffer a couple of delays due to crashes, they're dead. Pissler fog only gets worse as the day goes on.

Friday is also supposed to be warm, rainy, and foggy for the womens SL.

The best case scenario is the GS run 2 finishes Thursday, the SL goes off on Friday as scheduled, and Saturday the mens SL finishes things up. However, we're talking about Pissler here. Worst case: too foggy to run GS run 2 Thursday, same thing for womens SL on Friday, men run SL on Saturday (weather is supposed to clear by Saturday), Sunday is a make-up day for womens SL, and womens GS is abandoned due to Pissler fog.

Pissler just sucks.

Vonn's crash was a doozy. She almost knocked herself unconscious with her own right knee (which she also did at Lake Louise earlier this season, where she almost bit through her own tongue), then got twisted up like a bavarian pretzel in a very violent tumble. She's one strong and tough chick to walk away from that under her own power. An impressive athlete indeed. She fractured her finger. That's actually a big deal, because her next race is slalom, and these days, slalom racing is essentially a boxing match between the racers and the rapid-gates. Racing modern slalom with an injured hand is very, very difficult. If I were her, I'd pack my bags tonight and leave with my two medals. Maybe go host Saturday Night Live this weekend (as she has stated she'd love to do) instead of staying around rainy Pissler to try to race slalom with her hand in a cast.

Barcelona Dragons Defeat Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl

Andrea Fischbacher of Austria won the womens SG today. Heretofore, the Austrians have been getting their asses kicked in this Olympics, which, back in Austria, has approximately the same societal impact as losing the Vietnam War had on Americans.

I'm not exaggerating.

Much.

I'm sure Fischbacher's gold was celebrated back in Austria, but even if Austria goes 1-2-3 in all of the remaining events, the Austrian media are going to crucify the team for their performance in Pissler. Ski racing is that important to the country.

Here in the US, virtually everyone with the slightest interest in professional sports is a fan of one or more of the following: NFL football, MLB baseball, NBA basketball, and NASCAR. In addition, a significant percentage of the US population goes borneo over college football (BCS anyone?) or college hoops (March Madness). In Austria, there's none of that. It's alpine ski racing, alpine ski racing, alpine ski racing. All ski racing, all winter. OK, they watch soccer in the summer.

The thing about the Americans is we win 100% of our own "world" championships because we do not invite anybody else. "World Series", my ass. When's the last time you saw the Barcelona Dragons beat up on The Dallas Cowboys to win the Super Bowl? I'm surprised the NFL doesn't call it the Intergalactic Bowl, regardless of the fact that no other countries - let alone other galaxies - are invited.

Austria does not have that luxury. In ski racing, they are the gold standard, and every team on the planet is out to beat them first and foremost.

The ÖSV ("Austria Ski Team" as they call themselves) is the best-managed, best-organized, best-performing, wealthiest, best-sponsored alpine team on the planet. Most years, they win more than all the other teams put together. They're kind of like the Dallas Cowboys or the NY Yankees, in that they do not always win, but historically they win more than everybody else added together. When they don't win, they put their heads down and come back at you twice as hard the next time.

The Austrians also host three of the biggest events on the World Cup: the season opener on the Rettenbach glacier in Sölden, the Hahnenkamm in Kitzbühel (also the biggest winter sporting event in Europe) and the Nachtslalom in Schladming.

All the teams respect the Austrians. All the teams fear the Austrians. All the teams think about the Austrians before they concern themselves with anybody else.

Right now the Swiss have a very good team. They're on equal terms with the Austrians, who are in somewhat of a slump. But for almost 20 years, the Swiss couldn't get arrested. That NEVER would have happened to Austria. They have a mediocre season from time to time. But most seasons, the AUTs dominate.

Austria has two of the top "technical" skiers on the World Cup, Benjamin Raich and Reinfried Herbst. Raich won the overall World Cup crystal globe in 2006 and won both the SL and GS in Torino. Herbst has been the hottest SL skier on the World Cup this year. Herbst had Kitzbühel all but won and blew it a few gates from the finish, but then convincingly won Schladming two days later. The pressure on those two guys to perform in the upcoming GS and SL events is crushing. If the US hadn't won any medals whatsoever so far in this Olympics, the majority of the country would not know and would not care, as they're mostly watching the Lakers, the Celtics and the Heat (as I am tonight), perhaps the Black Hawks or the Flyers, or else University of Kentucky or UCLA. But trust me on this....when Herbst and Raich take to the slopes, virtually every TV set in Austria will be tuned to the ski racing on ÖRF.

Why are the AUTs so good? It was explained to me by an Austrian friend. In the US, virtually every kid grows up with free sporting facilities either down the street or at their school, or both. Virtually all American kids, no matter how rich or poor, have either tennis courts, a baseball field, hoops courts, or an athletics field available nearby, facilities they can use either for free or for a nominal fee. Our long-suffering parents dump us off at tennis practice or baseball practice to get rid of us after school. In Austria, there's none of that. Baseball is non-existent, and sports like tennis and basketball are played only at expensive private clubs. But something like 70% of Austrians live within a 20 minute drive of a ski hill. It may not be much - maybe one or two old rope tows, but virtually all have junior programs, so it is a cultural custom that Austrian parents dump their kids off at the local ski hill after school the way American parents take their kids to baseball practice and Canadian parents schlepp their kids to hockey practice.

Speaking of Canadians, where have they been this Olympics? I feel bad for them. They are one of the best-coached, best-managed teams on the World Cup, and Eric Guay's two fifths are all the CANs have to show so far for an Olympics on home turf. Hopefully Canada will win the hockey, because that will kick off a huge national celebration, and the sub-par performance of the ski team will be forgotten.

While We're on the Subject of Weather......

Live in NY or Washington (or Dallas during the NBA All-Star Game)?

Having a tough winter? Having your doubts about this global warming stuff?

This one's for you (and you too, The Big Guy):

link to YouTube

:=)

Mens Super-G with Spectators in Golf Shirts

Andrew Weibrecht, whom I picked as a dark horse for a medal in Vancouver a few posts ago, won bronze today in the Mens SG. Good for him. He's 100% unbridled rage out on the race course, but really, really talented. To me, he's probably the most entertaining World Cup skier to watch, except for maybe Bode. During WC races where we're doing the timing & scoring, no matter how busy I am, I try to look up and watch those two if nobody else. Weibrecht is the favorite skier of my bro CoopFromCowberg, who regales us "timing tower rats" with rehashes of the amusing repartee he has with Weibrecht in the starthaus @ World Cup.

Today's race was again decided partially by the weather. A friend of mine, who has seen and worked at way more World Cup races than I have, was actually there in person today. He said it was 50 degrees, and the course was toast by #20.

There's been a weird dynamic in all these races that has contributed to an extraordinary performance by the US team. In order to understand this dynamic, you've got to understand the basics of the "bib draw" process. For TV and for the crowd, FIS wants the "top seed" to run with bibs 16-22. So in other words, if you're the WCSL points leader and you want to ski early because you know the course is going to turn to mush, the lowest bib you can draw is 16. If the top WCSL skiers had a choice of any number, knowing how slushy the course has been, skiers like Cuche and Riesch and Vonn and Svindal would be choosing bibs 1-2-3. Julia Mancuso has been doing so poorly this season that she's out of the "top seed" and has been "stuck" with a low bib (1-7). But when you're racing in May weather (or Pissler in February), the early bibs are the ones to have. Same thing happened today with Weibrecht as happened with Mancusco in the DH. He was bib #3, as was Mancusco. He put down an extraordinary run, which in cold weather with a consistent course would have put him solidly in the top 10. But meanwhile, the course was softening quickly and was slowing down maybe 0.10 with every competitor. The sun and the warmth did the rest. Not to take anything away from Mancuso and Weibrecht, because everybody with bibs in the top 10 and certainly in the top 5 have had the same opportunity. They were both good and lucky.

In the womens DH, the bib disadvantage to the fastest skiers was exacerbated further by a series of crashes, each of which took about 10-12 minutes to clear. In the womens DH Vonn was able to win the DH from bib 16 by putting in a blistering run that I think would have been 2 seconds faster than anybody else (except maybe Riesch) had the weather been cold. Given the crushing pressure on Vonn, for her to put in the run she did, in that situation, was nothing short of sensational. To me it puts her up there with athletes like Roger Federer and Tiger Woods, who go into events like Wimbledon and The Masters with absolutely nothing to gain for anything other than victory. For Federer to lose in the Wimbledon Final is a disaster. For anybody else, it's probably the highlight of their year.

Today in the mens SG, with a medal already in hand, Svindal said his plan was to go 10/10ths, either win or crash. He won.

As I stated in an earlier post, this is one of the reasons that ski racers consider the World Cup "crystal globe" way more prestigious than an Olympic medal. An Olympic medal of course looks good on your palmares, and is great for endorsements, but it's only one race and ski racing can be flukey. If you win the crystal globe, you've won all season long, in all kinds of conditions, on a bunch of different courses, across continents. THAT is what makes you the best. Nobody has ever won a crystal globe under a cloud of "lucky" or "fluke". Coincidentally, Svindal and Vonn currently hold their respective crystal globes.