A highly controvesial rule has been agreed by FIS the Skiing Governing body and SRS the Ski Racing Suppliers’ Association that will throw the Giant Slalom discipline back to the 90’s. The new rule effects the radius of the ski. The current FIS requirement is 27m, the new ruling will see an additional 8m to 35m.
The radius of the ski is the way of measuring the sidecut (or the hourglass shape) of a carving ski. Technically if you trace a line around one edge of the ski and continue round the full circle that then gives you the radius. Most piste skis have a radius between 14-18m. This gives you the opportunity to carve the ski at slow speeds.
Fundamentally this new ruling will make the skis straighter and longer similar to the 1990’s. The racer won’t be able to carve the ski round the gates so will have to steer and skid the ski.
Bode Miller is one of a number of high profile racers that are fighting to change the ruling “(The new regulations are) a complete joke,” Miller said. It’s going backwards every time they do a regulation. “This is another step back in time. Next year you will see people walking into a ski shop and buy better skis than we can race on in the World Cup. That’s a really bad situation.”
The new ruling has been defended by FIS and SRS as they claim it will reduce injuries (mostly ACL injuries of the knee) caused by the strain and stress of carving at high speed. but Bode disagrees:
“So to go back to skis from the early 90s is kind of a joke … It’s been a big jump from 27-meter radius to 35-meter radius. That could lead to a jump in injuries as well.”
Similar measures have been taken by other sports governing bodies in the past to reduce speed and incidents such as the FIA removing turbo chargers and grooving slick tires on Formula 1 cars. It was argued then that it would dilute the spectators experience. It seemed to make no difference down the line.
It would be surprising if this new radius ruling doesn’t effect the sport, you cannot argue that watching Bode carve round the GS course is impressive, will watching him skid around the gates have the same visual effect.
One thing is for sure. All those involved in the Euro test as part of their instructors qualification, will not be looking forward to jumping on a pair of straight retro skis, although it would give you an excuse to wear a one-piece!
Toby
Yes, after warmer weather that saw all the snow we had two weeks ago disappear, and after a soggy few days it’s finally snowing up at Lac des Vaux again.
But the biggest reason that we know winter is coming is that the Pub Mont Fort opened up last night, which always feels like the starting point of the season.
I think the thing about early season is that we’ve been rather spoilt for the past three seasons, and we almost expect to be up skiing the first weekend of every season as if that’s normal. We forget that in seasons before these last three, we might not have had anything open until December. It’s unusual to have the whole place already up and running in November.
Speaking of unusual, the final bit of news concerns Mike – he just sent me a picture of one of the piste machines and is convinced it looks like that annoying Hello Kitty thing that all the kids go mad for. Thoughts? We think he might simply have spent too long up the hill fixing lifts on his own – it gives the mind time to wander you see…
Click here for the latest images from the webcams…
Yes, it looks like we haven’t got any skiing in store this weekend as there’s not enough snow at the top, but we are forecast some this weekend and there are all sorts of swirling menacing things somewhere over the Atlantic and they should be heading our way soonish. Hopefully a lot and soon.
But what we do have is a list of the lift opening times for this season, which is rather handy. And it takes our minds off the fact we’re not going to be skiing this weekend…
Yes, it’s gone a bit quiet on the precipitation front in Verbier. We had that snow the week before last, and then we went to the Ski Show in London, and when we got back, well, there wasn’t any snow in town.
Now, that’s normal, after all we’ve got a bit used to the amazing early snow of the last few years and have perhaps forgotten that we’ve had winters in the last five years where people have been happily playing golf at the start of December. So it’s the end of October and we’ve had two nice big, early falls. But now it’s quiet.
If this was a Western we’d all be saying it’s too quiet and we should get the wagons in a circle. Or something like that.
Anyway, to take your mind off the snow, and to give you a little dose of stupidity, we thought you might like to see the latest GoPro video…
Yes, as predicted the sun is back out and revealing the extent of the snow.
Now RHS will get all cynical and tell you it’ll never last. He’s probably right. But whether or not it stays in Verbier doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s a decent amount at lac des Vaux… Ready for November 5th…
Yes, we haven’t had a good gloat for a while so we thought we’d get some in now. Well, it’s Friday and we’re all ready for the weekend. So take your minds off work and enjoy this…
