szy123

no, the combined event basically doesn't exist...it's a compromise between IFSC and IOC to find a place for Sport Climbing at the Olympic Games, but at senior level it's not present in any other competition apart from the World Championships (and this year there are no world champs) and the Olympic Qualifier (late november in France)...
 
of course there will be some minor competitions and National Champs in most Countries to practice and find out who's most reliable in that kind of event, but it's not scheduled in any other major competition...

Little (or actually not so little) rant about some developments in alpine skiing incoming:
I always really liked the alpine combined as I think it's dramatic in a very unique way. Like people always complained the combined isn't thrilling enough because in the slalom run there are lots of riders without a chance to win between the favorites but really in Slaloms or GS' there isn't a skier with a chance to win before the top 10 or even 5 of the first run start, yet I don't hear anyone wanting to cut the 2nd run to 10 skiers. Moreover it was absolutely unique that bib 1, bib 10 bib 20 and bib 30 of the slalom all could be among the favorites. A slalom doesn't have a 2nd run where the favorites are spread over the whole starting list, a combined usually does.
So in other words, I like this event and I don't want it to die, but if every combined is like todays I'd have a hard time arguing for its existance. I'd say a combined in Are will always favor slalom skiers as the downhill slope there will never generate huge time gaps as it's generally on the easier side, but with it being extremely shortened plus the slalom slope being in a pretty bad condition this race was a joke before it even started. Now unfortunately the success of the combined is always meassured on how good the race at the last world championship or olympics was and as we haven't had a combined at a major event without either a drastically shortened downhill or a slope in an appaling condition since 2014 every single of these combineds was more or less a joke. Now if we look at 2014 and the events prior to that you'll see that the big advantage for slalom specialists everyone talks about now was basically nonexistent. Sandro Viletta despite being a surprise champion surely wasn't a slalom specialist, Ligety in 2013 was a very good slalom skier but he was already 6th after the downhill, in 2011 and 2009 Svindal won, in 2010 Miller, who back then was basically a speed specialist and in 2007 the combined was won by Daniel Albrecht who was a true allrounder. Combineds don't favor the slalom guys by nature. In a different world this championship takes place on a slope where Schwarz, Pinturault and Hadalin lose 3 seconds to Paris instead of 1 and the slalom slope is in great condition and all of a sudden you would get a race dominated by downhillers. The problem is, that wouldn't really be any better. You probably had less complaining about the event if combineds wouldn't always favor the same guys but in a race where everyone is either a slalom specialist or a downhill specialist you are always gonna favor someone. What really made this event off balanced is the lack of allrounders who can beat anyone anyway. Sure there have been specialists being competitive in the combined in the past as well but I'm certain Svindal used to be a much better slalom skier than any downhiller from this year. (I'll never forget that he secured his first overall world cup win by getting 15th in the final slalom of the 2007 season, something that seems completely impossible now) But even when there weren't many allrounders there always were a few. A guy like Natko Zrnsic Dim who was neither a good downhiller nor a good slalom skier got 4 world cup podiums in combineds plus a world championship medal. You can be a true combined specialist, but problematically nobody aims for that if there are only one or two combineds per season. Why should someone like say, Christof Innerhofer add Slalom to his training program if that discipline is relevant for him twice in the whole year. It's just way smarter to concentrate on what you are already good at and that is what gets you Hirscher with 2 or 3 downhill training days a year as an alpine combined world and olympic champion.
Besides the fact that the lack of combineds makes the event less and less competitive I also think the combined should be crucial in the battle for overally world cups. And looking back it actually was. If Benjamin Raich's combined shape hadn't declined as much as it did after 2006 he probably would have won 3 or 4 overall world cups, instead he won one. Of course overall world cup battles were very different before the Hirscher era (it was seen as almost impossible to win the overall world cup with two disciplines only, nowadays there isn't even a single skier who is competitive in 3) but I think if anything this should have led to an increase in combineds not a decrease. Little cycling analogy, if a pure climber dominates the tour de frances despite time trials, the tour de france organizers won't say "okay  time trials are useless now, let's drop them altogether", they will increase time trial kilometers so the dominant climber gets beatable. Hirscher in the shape he has now probably would be unbeatable anyway but there will be an era after Hirscher. You could argue that Hirscher's dominance effectively made allrounders useless and you might be right, but what the fis is doing by killing the combined is making sure allrounders don't come back once Hirscher retires or declines. It's easy to forget a bit over 1000 points used to be enough to be in the battle for the overall world cup an in such a battle, let's say, 5 combineds can have a huge impact. 
I should probably stop writing now as this post is already so long that nobody will read it anyway (right?) but this is just driving me crazy. I really want a return of the times when there were proper allrounders winning overall world cups, downhillers won gs' (little side fact I just noticed, between 2003 and 2009 there were 4 gs world champions who all won at least 3 downhills and a combined number of 40 downhills) and technicans were competitive in super-g's. But to me it feels like the fis is constantly making the wrong responds to changes in the sport. 

Bode Miller: "I doubt there will even be a World Cup in a few years, they want to make everything just about entertaining people with stuff like city events, but that's not what the sport was originally about. Also, it's a disgrace that the combined is going out."

More specifically, the way the combined is set up currently is a joke. The whole thing in itself is not bad at all if they manage to make it sort of balanced.

What's up with this weird aerials team event where there's an unequal number of athletes and so either 2 men + 1 woman or 1 man + 2 women per team? That's just nonsense  

C'mon, Vonn crashed face-first into the fence while Ross hit the deck with her ass. Besides I don't think someone with so many sponsors like Vonn would show her almost bare butt on Instagram  

Updated as of February 6th, 2019

I like how Staudacher is trending today.

85 World Cup starts, one top-10 (8th in Bansko last year), I think that's one of the times where you don't lose gold but win silver  

Come on Annamari Staudacher  

I am very proud of the german girls that they boycotted this event by no-showing during the finals. They could have easily swept this considering that they always had the blue course, but by not doing this they took a stand and showed the officials that the course was unfair.

Yeah, you have to save energy for that, much like you'll be in shit shape at the Olympics three years from now if you go to bed at 22:05 instead of 22:00 tonight.

This was a much better event back when they did two runs...

I think it was a really entertaining race. Would never say it was an easy one. Becuase of wheather conditions it was short, but still there was drama and it was very close-fought. Shiffrin deserved the win. This season she had won every super g she started and saying that she was lucky today is just an ignorance.

Why are we even comparing White and Ledeská? Freestyle and alpine snowboarding are almost different sports now, there is no overlap between the athletes.
 
...and come on, Red Gerard isn’t even one of the one of the biggest star of slopestyle snowboarding, let alone snowboarding in general. He was a big media star in the US during the Olympics but that was about it.

Absolutely pointless race, completely unworthy. The fact that almost everyone on the blue course won clearly shows that this course was ridiculous. I guess Joerg cant believe her luck. A couple of years ago someone like her never would have gotten a gold medal in PGS, but sadly the level of competition is at an all time low. I miss the days of Ledecky (misspelling her name makes me feel cool ) ... [semicit.]

Shiffrin isn't a classic all-arounder like Wachter or Ertl was. Tina Maze was the last AA skier on the female side and even Vonn only switched to technical events to win the overall. If Shiffrin wanted then she could have won the overall doing SL/GS only. Even Hirscher doesn't do SG anymore because he doesn't have to. The era of all-arounders from 90s/00s will no longer be repeated. Vonn vs Riesch was the last duell of the AA because even Maze only won the overall when Vonn was injured. I used to think Fenninger vs Gut will be the next big duell but it wasn't to be due to injuries.
 
Let's make no mistake, Shiffrin will probably erase Stenmark's record within the next three years. She's 12 wins behind Hirscher but has a better chance of getting to Stenmark first IMO.

What? The most succesful slalom skier of all time wins gold in a super-g and you think that's the point to call the end of the allrounder? Also if anything a smaller talent pool will lead to more allrounders as the depth in the particular disciplines goes down. That said, I don't think freestyle skiing is that big of a problem for alpine skiing as the people doing freestyle skiing probably aren't that often the ones who would be succesful in alpine skiing. 
 
Now this is just nonsense. The time gaps were small but not because the slope was so easy but because coincidentally nobody put together a perfect run. I generally don't get the hate for the slopes in Are. They might not be very long but aside from that imo the speed slopes are pretty interesting. You have technical and gliding sections, lots of jumps and waves and it isn't just one long forest aisle where the whole slope is basically just right turn, followed by left turn, followed by right turn,... The downhills in Are actually follow the terrain unlike most modern downhills.
About the depth being down, you are probably partially right, as Gut and Weirather are out of shape, Veith is injured and Vonn...the less said about her currently the better. So yeah the competition right now isn't great but I think you are looking at the era of Maze through rose colored glasses. I mean the fact that the first skier who came to your mind has won a grand total of 1 world cup super-g in her whole career (tbf plus a WC gold medal in that discipline) tells you quite a lot. So in 2013 people could have complained that aside from Vonn who crashed Maze just had no competition at all as Riesch and Görgl were out of shape that year, and greats like Pärson and Götschl retired a few seasons ago. I bet Shiffrin would have been one of the best super-g skiers back then as well just like she would be in any modern skiing era. 

People used to bitch when Maze & Vonn dominated too. It was supposed to be boring. The course wasn't easy due to snow conditions and the fact so many made mistakes. 1/3 of the starters DNF. That is NOT an easy course. Shiffrin is anything but lucky. Patrick Staudacher or Daniela Ceccharelli were lucky, when you have 56 World Cup wins and 4 WCh gold medals at age 23 luck has nothing to do with it.

IOC is also making a profit staging sports that doesn't cost much to have (infrastuctures and quotas wise). Which is defintly the case of squash. That's a - very - important part of the equation.
 
Squash is not an huge money maker, but it does make money (which means there are people who cares about it somewhere), more so than quite a few olympic sports.
 
Unfortunatly for you, that Monzanator has or has not watched any given sport in his lifetime is not (yet) an official critera for olympic inclusion.

Maybe you think so because it is a niche sport in Poland and it's more like sunday recreational activity here, But it is popular worldwide and I think it should be included at olympics. I can't understand why they are still out of olympics.

Buzzi fractured the tibial plate in his right leg (the same he injured at last season's finals)...
he's going to have an operation in the next few days to stabilize the bone and check possible ligament damages...
his season's over, of course...
definitely not the best way to celebrate the best result of your career...

The girls attending the meetings with IAAF social media:
 
 
 

Maybe our federation can try a move...and send a offer to Noriaki, he still would be easily in our NT even at 70 if he´ll want

So cool to open the season in Poland, it's hard to find World Cup competitions with a better atmosphere  (Willingen and Innsbruck are fantastic as well when sold out)