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john petersen

working through minutia to find the big picture!
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awesome coverage on the event gang!....thank you...I never would have been able to learn this much about the event, the point standings and strategies, the whos who in not only the race world but in the world of commentary, ect ect....

way better than any other single media outlet!...way to go PUGSKI!

JP
 

surfsnowgirl

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I'm very glad we paid for our grandstand seats as we were right at the base of superstar so it was utterly perfect with an unobstructed view and somehow we go the same perfect seats after lunch as well. Only wish we had bigger cowbells but we'll do that next year. Think next year we'll stay in town the whole weekend, that way we'll have time to partake in the concert after the GS event and just chill and drink a little bit. Great photos in this thread and I love the analysis and inside information.
 

ScotsSkier

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Rudi and epic. Thanks for a terrific job reporting and with photos. Very much appreciated, I know just how difficult it is to keep on top of it. Kudos!

And to all the other Pugskiers with pictures, reports etc, awesome work! Really helps to add to the whole flavor of the event.

Some great skiing. Good to see MS back on form. For me the big difference was she was getting the ski back in the fall line quickly again in slalom - her standout advantage for me - whereas in Levi she seemed to be bringing it across the hill pretty much like everyone else. And I have to admit to being surprised by her GS result, didn't seem to be attacking the second run to me, but she pulled out a lot of time in the last 6 gates!
 

James

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Photos from the GS on Saturday. My first time at a FIS race, and Killington put on a great show! Nice to meet a few other Pugski members.
View attachment 33965
The light coming over the ridge made for some pretty neat effects.

Did you hike up above the final pitch?
GREAT JOB KILLINGTON! Looking forward to next year.
Yes, excellent job.

What would be great, and unique, would be to have a full on college marching band somewhere down at the bottom. Think Ohio State level. Now obviously they'd never give up a football game to do some silly ski race. As it's prime football time, getting say UVM's band,( I assume they have one), would be unlikely. Perhaps one could be assembled from band members in the Northeast who don't make the travelling squad.

It would be awesome. The Europeans have nothing like it, ?, so it would make the race even more special. And add noise level. When they could fill in is after the racer crosses the line and everyone stops cheering. When someone moves into first they could go into their special routine.
 

crgildart

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Did you hike up above the final pitch?

Yes, excellent job.

What would be great, and unique, would be to have a full on college marching band somewhere down at the bottom. Think Ohio State level. Now obviously they'd never give up a football game to do some silly ski race. As it's prime football time, getting say UVM's band,( I assume they have one), would be unlikely. Perhaps one could be assembled from band members in the Northeast who don't make the travelling squad.

It would be awesome. The Europeans have nothing like it, ?, so it would make the race even more special. And add noise level. When they could fill in is after the racer crosses the line and everyone stops cheering. When someone moves into first they could go into their special routine.

Get some of these guys to do the gig? Or, an actual local polka band being serious....

enhanced-buzz-orig-19931-1387412089-18.jpg
 

Swede

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I agree, great job and the crowd could be heard all the way to Y’rup.
What’s the nearest town/village to the venue?

cheers
 

James

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Get some of these guys to do the gig? Or, an actual local polka band being serious....

enhanced-buzz-orig-19931-1387412089-18.jpg
No, polka is fooling around. Plus polka is European. Marching bands are different. They certainly wouldn't be content sitting in a container playing for drunks :). They are used to being in the stands and turning on and off all the time in response to the football game. And owning the space. They play for thousands, not a couple dozen.

I agree, great job and the crowd could be heard all the way to Y’rup.
What’s the nearest town/village to the venue?

cheers
Well, Killington. Rutland and Woodstock are fairly close. Biggest towns nearby would be Albany, NY; Burlington,VT; Springfield, MA; Manchester, NH. All roughly 2hrs away give or take. With the exception of Burlington, probably 90% of those people don't know there's a World Cup race. Or they heard it but it's like saying there's a high school car wash fundraiser in town. (Much more likely to go to that).

But...the reason you see so many fans there as opposed to out West is there are thousands of kids in ski racing programs in the Northeast. These people often travel hours, 3-6, regularly for skiing on the weekend. So doing it for this event isn't that different. Parents understand how unique an event it is, what it takes to get to that level, and how their kids would love to see the real thing. I doubt you could go 3 meters in the crowd without seeing someone with some sort of small ski team jacket on.
 
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Muleski

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This article appeared in skiracing.com yesterday.

https://www.skiracing.com/premium/mikaela-shiff-win-strikes-again

The author, Gabbi Hall {who's a former NCAA racer} spent some time interviewing Tiger Shaw, USSSA CEO.

He said "We are measured by Olympic Medals as an organization." Read the last few paragraphs.

Essentially what he's saying is that true race fans, and the athletes themselves care much more about the WC. An athlete places the most "value" on a WC overall globe. Tiger says as much. But, for the rest of the world, as Rudi mentions and others have, the Olympics are it. Basically one race start, every four years, in each event. Some really rise to the occasion. Never did before. Never do again.

Good example is Deb Armstrong who won the 1984 GS. I think that was her only win. May have had a WC podium or two. Great for her to have won the medal. Seriously.

I think there is, IMO, a real conflict and divide between how our national federation is defining success in the sport, versus the rest of the world. We are an outlier. I assume that it is all driven by market research,sponsor and advertising interest. Must be.

It is clear how we define best in the world. She is great to watch. It's surely not how the powerful teams see it. I sort of like seeing how teams go at this. Like the Norwegian men, the Italian women in GS, the Austrians.

If Ligety is not back to where he was. If the men's speed team doesn't find another gear or two, and if LV does not show her former speed {I think she will, to a large degree, BTW}, what do we have a team of one?

Having USA Olympic team criteria based on WC results will be interesting, as there may not be so many results between now and then. Could be three on the mens' tech team, two of whom pretty much specialize in one event.

Sort of interesting to see it out there from Tiger.
 

James

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Bernadette Schilds, AUT, 3rd in SL, from the article:
“I realized the crowd, they all stayed until the last racer first run and that’s amazing, and that’s really a race that I think all the racers love,” Schild said. “The crowd, they cheer for everybody, and that’s just really nice.”

Yeah that's what has been great about the Killington races. It's not just cheering for Americans. Probably has a lot to do with how many race families are there.

It's definitely louder for Mikaela, and louder but less so for the other Americans and Canadians. The whole field gets very good cheering though. Even when they DNF and come through the finish to get off the course.
 

K2 Rat

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Great job and thanks to @Rudi Riet for the commentary and to @epic and @AaronFM for some great pics. It was my 28th World Cup that I witnessed live dating back to '78 Stratton and attending these never gets old.

Hats off to Killington for an amazing job and they really put on a World class event. They learned a lot from last year and made great improvements. Many more buses, bathrooms, food options and better/ bigger layout allowing for much better moving around. No more bottlenecks! After having to be there @ 7:15 on Sat for the junior athlete parade staging, I slept in a bit more ( 5am departure from Mt Snow on Sat!) and was a bit worried about parking. But I pulled into Snowshed @ 8:15 and parked without a problem. My son arrived an hour later and had no problem parking at Ram's Head and both of us had an empty bus waiting for us. The nice thing about parking there was we both did the short walk down to our cars after the race and skipped the shuttle bus thing.

Killington did such a great job making snow and preparing the hill. They got a great window of efficient snowmaking around Nov 10th and took full advantage of it. I know Rudi said the surface was getting soft on Sat, but to my "old" eyes it looked like it held up pretty well. I did not see any TV coverage which might have been better for me to tell. Regardless, it was not peeling away like last year!

As others have said, the crowd was amazing. 18k and 16k of screaming fans both days. Pretty cool that the girls said they could hear the crowd from the start and everyone got a big cheer. The racers clearly got into it and an example was when Stephanie Brunner of Austria arrived in the finish area after her 2nd run DNF to a cheering crowd, she swung her poles around like Resi does. You don't see that very often on a DNF ! I have been to various European races and not everyone stays around to watch the entire first run. But they did at Killington!

I stood on Sat and had Grandstand seats on Sunday. Either are good and I had a great view both days. It was nice to sit down some on Sunday as my back was getting tired on Saturday. I brought lunch in both days, but my son did not on Sunday. After watching the entire first run on Sunday, we walked over to the Food tent and it was a breeze to get lunch. Our lane had one person ordering in front of us !

Can't wait for next year and I highly recommend attending this event. Like @Muleski said, I hope it becomes a regular stop. I guess it will come down to economics.

Here is a pic of me ( in sunglasses) marching in with our Mount Snow Academy athletes in the parade on Saturday. Each club represented a country and we got England. Maybe we brought Alex Tilley some luck !!

IMG_7453.JPG
IMG_7454.JPG
IMG_7504.JPG
 
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Guy in Shorts

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Guy In Shorts 24-26 Killington Report

The skiing world stopped by Killington this weekend to run a race and have a party. Huge response from the East Coast fan base as it seemed that everyone who loves racing was here. Crowd numbers like 18K on Saturday and 16K on Sunday proved to the racing world that the Beast was the place to be. The super icy race course conditions that the World Cup women favor could be found on many of the public trails by the end of the ski days. Being one of the 21 Killington skiers who had skied at least 100 days per season for the last five years got you an invite into the VIP tent for the weekend. Normally I try not to let distractions derail my ski day but the allure of lobster tails on the barbecue with an open bar proved too great. Rubbing elbows with the likes of Suzy Chaffee, Donna Weinbrecht and Billy Kidd was the bomb. Buddy commented that Sugarbush doesn’t treat their diehard skiers as well as Killington. Finished Sunday watching Mikaela Shiffrin win her second Killington Cup in slalom from the nearby Highline trail. This great Thanksgiving weekend ski tradition returns again next year. Hats off to all the hard work put in by many to make this a true World Class event.


World Cup Race Grade – A


Quote of the Day – Killington really knows how to reward it’s most loyal fans.

Worl Cup Fireworks.jpg
Fireworks
Suzy and Donna.jpg
Suzy and Donna
Mikalea wins slalom.jpg
Mikaela Wins
Billy Kidd.jpg
Billy Kidd
 

James

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Finished Sunday watching Mikaela Shiffrin win her second Killington Cup in slalom from the nearby Highline trail.
Hah, saw you Highline skiers up there.

IMG_4454.JPG

For people who don't know Killington.

The trail in the middle of the photo by Guy in Shorts is the race venue- Superstar. The one to the right is Ovation. It's always hard to tell pitch from a photo. We're also seeing them from different angles so it's hard to directly compare. Ovation is very steep. Parts of it are well into the 40 degree zone.
 

Black Dog

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Does anyone know who the female commentator was in the ORF (Austrian TV) booth?
She fore-ran both courses with a helmet cam on. She did a pretty good job of getting down the hill BTW.
I tried to google it but had no luck as everything is in German.
 
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Rudi Riet

Rudi Riet

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Does anyone know who the female commentator was in the ORF (Austrian TV) booth?
She fore-ran both courses with a helmet cam on. She did a pretty good job of getting down the hill BTW.
I tried to google it but had no luck as everything is in German.

It’s Nicole Hosp, who retired at the end of the 2014-15 season.
 

SkiSpeed

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Possibly Alexandra Meissnitzer, Austrian Racer, has globes & medals. Have seen her do runs on YouTube.
 
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Rudi Riet

Rudi Riet

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Possibly Alexandra Meissnitzer, Austrian Racer, has globes & medals. Have seen her do runs on YouTube.

Meissnitzer still does ORF’s speed coverage - that was her specialty when she raced. Hosp’s technical prowess in SL and GS is a boon for covering the more turn-laden events.
 

James

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It’s Nicole Hosp, who retired at the end of the 2014-15 season.
Did she come down before the second run not in a speed suit and a dark helmet? Whoever that was, wasn't trying to crush it but looked damn good. Better than the forerunners (crashing and burning...)

Here she is-

IMG_4455.PNG

Aspen Slalom, 2nd run 2006
Photo Ron LeMaster
 

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