Alpine Skiing at the Winter Olympic Games 2018

[Gigs 68]

  On 2/21/2018 at 7:13 PM, cypher said:

Interesting the frenchman Clément Noël who won junior slalom world championships by almost 3sec, will start the olympic slalom tomorrow.

He's in very good shape. I wish he could enter the top 10

Expand  

I wouldn't be surprised. Noël is one of the best young skiers right now and might be the guy who'll challange kristoffersen when hirscher has retired. I know it's probably too early to tell but I was incredibly impressed by his performances in the last world cup slaloms. 

You're talking about a top ten, but I actually think he could cause a huge upset and win a medal. I wouldn't be more surprised than about Gallhuber winning bronze

[cypher 2]

  On 2/21/2018 at 7:26 PM, Gigs said:

I wouldn't be surprised. Noël is one of the best young skiers right now and might be the guy who'll challange kristoffersen when hirscher has retired. I know it's probably too early to tell but I was incredibly impressed by his performances in the last world cup slaloms. 

You're talking about a top ten, but I actually think he could cause a huge upset and win a medal. I wouldn't be more surprised than about Gallhuber winning bronze

Expand  

Yeah I could name him as a medal surprise but I don't want tout over esrimate him for now

Lets see whats he could do at big competition 

[OlympicsFan 860]

  On 2/21/2018 at 7:13 PM, cypher said:

Interesting the frenchman Clément Noël who won junior slalom world championships by almost 3sec, will start the olympic slalom tomorrow.

He's in very good shape. I wish he could enter the top 10

Expand  

I noticed him at the junior world championships, i couldnt believe his winning margin. He must be an extraordinary talent i think not even Kristoffersen had such a huge margin at junior world championships.

[Gigs 68]

Yeah in 2015 kristoffersen's winning margins in both gs and slalom were smaller. That said he won those two races by 1 and 1.5 seconds and that was already one year after his first world cup win and winning the bronze medal in Sochi. So let's just say, both were impressive 

[cypher 2]

  On 2/21/2018 at 7:46 PM, Gigs said:

Yeah in 2015 kristoffersen's winning margins in both gs and slalom were smaller. That said he won those two races by 1 and 1.5 seconds and that was already one year after his first world cup win and winning the bronze medal in Sochi. So let's just say, both were impressive 

Expand  

Yeah but how about the concurrence ? maybe it wasn't similar.

I know that a Swiss take 5 gold at last JWch that is a thing too !!

[phelps 7,797]

  On 2/21/2018 at 1:37 PM, OlympicsFan said:

Thanks for that very thoughtful response! I agree about Goggia and i don't think i said something different. Her and Vonn had to be considered the favorites for sure. I don't agree about Fontana though, i would like to know why you considered her one of the 2 clear favorites, although she didn't win a single world cup this season and she is only 3rd in the 500 m world cup and 10th in both the 1000 m and 1500 m world cup. I don't follow shorttrack really religiously, but according to the world cup results i think that Boutin and Choi Min-jeong were the clear favorites, they won 8 out of 12 world cups. I would also be interested to know why you based your opinion concerning Moioli on the world cup results but not your opinion about Fontana? You are probably right about Moioli, although i still think you were exaggerating a bit, it sounded as if she was the biggest favorite at the whole olympic games and could only lose gold if she completely messed up.

Expand  

 

I didn't take Fontana's world cup performance too much in consideration because I know how the Italian team did set up the entire season...

our main goal was to qualify the relays, so we put all of our efforts into that, leaving the individual races a bit apart (the short track world cup requires the athletes to skate all the races -all the rounds- in just 3 days...so, you have to make some choices...especially when you're looking at specific targets and/or you know that you go to those races not in your best possible shape)...

in particular, this season she was asked to carry the load to achieve our main goal (since she was almost sure to get at least her individual qualifying spots, meanwhile the relay quali wasn't as safe before the start of the season -there were also many doubts about Valcepina's shape and we can't afford to rely on average skaters as Peretti, Maffei and Mascitto only)...

and despite that, she still managed to be competititive in "her" special distance (the 500m)...but of course the prize to pay was that she had just average results in the most demanding 1000m (a distance she has never liked that much through her entire career) and 1500m (where she is good but inconsistent, sometimes she can stay with the Koreans, Chinese and Canadian girls, sometimes she just can't)...

moreover, I know her history...I know how she can focus and peak at the "big events", meanwhile she isn't always interested in going full speed early in the season (and the world cup races are normally scheduled all in the first part of the season..in December it's all over)...and as a demonstration of that, let's remember that she was 3rd in Vancouver, 2nd in Sochi and more than once 1st at the world champs in the 500m race...

for what concerns Boutin, instead, I always considered her the classic skater with regular strong performances, but unable to peak when it really matters...and the Koreans, as good as they are, can't never be considered the favourite over the 500m distance since they always have problems at the start (and Choi is no different, though she's a bit better than her compatriots)...

the Koreans, moreover, are always in the same situation as the US swimmers and athletics specialists (or, if you want to stay with Winter sports, the Norwegians in CC skiing)...they have to start the season very well to earn your spot at the main events of that given season, since there are many contenders for the few places available...and this sometimes (often) leaves some room for the others to beat them later in the season, when people from other teams can peak, meanwhile they are a bit too tired (mentally more than physically, I guess)...

on the other hand, the Chinese staff has always been good at protecting their best skaters...that's why I consider Fan Kexin always the most dangerous threat for Arianna in the big events among the group of athletes (in which Boutin and Choi...and not only them are included, of course) who are good enough to be real medal contenders (other than her characteristics, strenght and personal history, of course)...

[Andry84 104]

Goggia won' t start in alpine combined.

[heywoodu 15,334]

This schedule today 

 

Alright, let's go  

[heywoodu 15,334]

Hirscher 

[Майкл 561]