Are they going to have helicopters flying overhead for every ski event?!
Are they going to have helicopters flying overhead for every ski event?!
Edgar Allen Poe? wrote:
It's more like cycling than running. Riddled with cheaters. More doping and more dopers. Watch with a grain of salt.
Unlike the super clean sport of track and field...
Bad Wigins wrote:
Bjoergen home devastated!
Cliche' there wiggy and your knowledge is a mile wide but and inch deep; Bjoergen is now the all-time leading medalist, not to mention sprints and relays coming up.
The cross country events have been listed and explained pretty well. Like XC skiing (and track) biathlon also has several races, all skating (you could classic if you wanted but it is way slower). 5 targets at every shooting stage in every race, always at 50m. In prone shooting, the target is about the size of a golf ball. In standing the target is the size of a softball. The target looks the same but a bar slides across to block most of the target when shooting prone.
Sprint is 10k for men, 7.5k for women. Shoot twice, first prone & then standing. Ski one ‘penalty loop’ per miss. Penalty loops usually take a little under 30 sec, so you have to be FAST to win if you miss one. That depends on the wind... when a race is really windy (like the women’s sprint just now) almost no one ‘shoots clean’.
The other races are variants on this.
Pursuit is 4 shoots, with starting times based on the results of the sprint. Individual is longer, 4 shoots and no penalty loops, just add one minute per miss. Have to shoot clean to win that one. Relay is 4x 7.5 km, two shoots, and each skier gets 3 extra bullets to replace misses at each stage, but you gotta hand load them into the breech.
I made a couple US teams as a biathlete and as a 100k runner, and XC ski raced for Rossignol for a few years. Based on that experience I’d say running, skiing and biathlon are equally hard, in different ways.
Serious comment here:
Why don't they add snowshoe racing?
Snowshoes are tools used by people who lack the skill, courage, and/or interest to ski. There is virtually no situation or conditions where snowshoeing is a more efficient means of travel than skiing. It'd be like in the summer olympics having a swimming event with a kickboard.
Nice run down on biathlon sc42 cri, it's an intriguing sport and challenging. I dabbled for a couple seasons in my 30s. I liked the summer running version better because you weren't fighting cold fingers the targets were 25 m instead of 50. Plus skiing with an 8-10 lb rifle on your back was a challenge. Couldn't shoot for sh&t so kind of moved on. But they have a very active biathlon club about an hour away so maybe in my mid-60s!
re: slowshoes, for many winters I mixed in snowshoe racing with Nordic skiing (2X national master distance champ so indeed, I can ski! Although maybe you are former World Cup skier or something), and I still liked snowshoeing racing--just not as much as skiing. I'd do 3-4 races a year on off weekends when there weren't races. It's really hard cardio-wise, kind of slow motion but you're working hard the entire way. It's also easier on your joints than running on snow-ice packed streets. Agree the skills required aren't great but it takes leg strength and stamina. And in contrast to your premise it doesn't relate to skiing in any way whatsoever. So no need to try to equate the two. It could be an interesting sport for the Olympics, especially compared to some of the sports or derivations the have added over the years.
Pizza Fanatic wrote:
Serious comment here:
Why don't they add snowshoe racing?
Because people’s hearts would literally explode on the uphills, I’m pretty sure.
Coyote,
Fair point that snowshoeing is hard. I would never dispute that. Furthermore, I was wrong if I implied that once you skied you would never snowshoe. Sounds like you did it as a cross training alternative to running in winter? That is fair. I think the comparison to swimming with a kick board applies.
I do think it relates to skiing as both are means of moving ones self across snowy terrain. Snowshoeing is a more practical and efficient means (generally speaking) than walking in normal shoes, but skiing is far more practical and efficient than both. But you're right, it's not a derivative of skiing, it's a (inefficiently) replacement.
There's no large scale historical or traditional culture of snowshoe competition, although people obviously have used them for a long time.
The Winter Olympics historically are an outgrowth of Nordic Games which consisted of the nordic ski disciplines, ice sports, and sliding sports . Since then, and the incorporation into the Olympic movement, new sports have certainly been added (and I'd agree if there are a few that probably shouldn't have been) but all are derivatives of these basic sports. Snow "walking" isn't compelling from a skill, speed, historical, traditional or derivative sense. It's hard, but so is competitive breath-holding. That itself is not a sufficient criteria for inclusion.
Snowshoeing is more like mountain-trail running compared to track. And they've gone so far with derivations on snowboarding and skiing (snowboard cross and all that), not to mention ice dancing and such, a gut it out 10K on snowshoes doesn't sound so bad. But would rather see real XC in the Olympics (summer) and that's not going to happen any time soon.
Nobody has touched on the nuances of waxing, particularly on classic skis. Classic skis are cambered-when the skiers weight is spread evenly across both skis, the cambered area in the middle of the skis does not rest against the snow. When the ski is pressed--i.e. all the weight put on one ski, the camber area touches the snow. Typically, there is a soft wax that is applied to this area of the ski, and that's how the skier can climb hills, and even transfer energy to the snow and move forward on the flats. The "kick wax" is selected based on snow type and temperature. It's very much an art to select the correct wax, and apply to the zone to match the skier, the course, the weather conditions, and the abrasiveness of the snow. Too "slippery" and the skier will have to press harder to make the skis grip. Too "grippy" and the skis will be slow on the downhills and flats. Waxing during a blizzard is tough--as is waxing for a long race when temperatures are liable to change over the course of the race.
Skating only uses glide wax--it's not quite as sensitive to variation. I came of age just as skating was coming into vogue. When I started college, nobody skated. When I finished everyone did. In my mind, it's a little like the DH rule in baseball--yes it's faster, but it took away a bit of what made cross-country ski racing interesting.
Waxing is what sent me back from skiing to running. Waxing is sooo boring but essential even in skating.
Disagree that snowshoeing is the trail running equivalent to track. That would be skimo, which is making a push to try to become an olympic sport again (its predecessor, the military patrol race, was a Winter Olympic event pre-war).
Very much agree on XC should be an Olympic event.
Coyote Montane wrote:
Bad Wigins wrote:
Bjoergen home devastated!
your knowledge is a mile wide but and inch deep; Bjoergen is now the all-time leading medalist
No, she's not - 11 to 12, and she's still 2 behind on GOLDS. That's what matters - no golds and she's done, forever devastated.
As long as we're knowing things.
wejo wrote:
Anyway I just started this thread because I love the Olympics but I know very little about cross country skiing (or most of the winter events for that matter).
I thought we the variants of cross country skiing were classical XC Skiing, normal XC skiing, biathlon, and nordic combined (jumping and XC skiing combined).
But now I see something called skiathlon and am even more confused.
Someone please break it down for the running fan. Maybe it can't be made analogous because a sprint in XC skiing is 1.5 km.
In terms of popularity in Europe, which types of XC skiing are most popular? Where does the biathlon rank and what about nordic combined? Are any of them considered total fringe like race walking?
Baseball and American Football are also fringe outside of the US.
Thanks for getting to the wax aspect. I would like to add that the role of the wax coach and the amount of money you can spend on state of the art wax and other surface treatments has increased by an order of magnitide since Swix Green and Parrafin were current.
When classical was the only game out there the biggest challenge was air temperatures up near freezing where one degree difference can be absolutely huge and some of the stuff they used back then (klister) had the consistency of peanut butter. In fact you could make a case that this was so messed up that this was where the skating style came from. I still have wax in my kit that was produced for anticipated conditions one World Championships in the early 1980s-a temperature equivalent of Swix Blue with Purple stripe that just works better than that does in high dry snow. Generally speaking the newer waxes had marginaly better temperature ranges that the traditional stuff but back then they were all reasonably affordable.
OTOH in extreme cold the snow is more coarse so everything is slower and that's where you use really hard waxes expecially for skating. At the "hobby jobber" level classical on set track is almost always the better way to go in temps like this; also altitude=lower air pressure=more coarse new snow even if the tempreature isn't so low. Today is likely the last day all year that I will be using Swix Green up at 8000 feet and I will be carrying Swix Polar because it got down to about -4 Farenheit last night.
At the highest competitive levels when they will have to skate in extreme cold temps that wax coach becomes a national hero and you can easily quite spend $200 per ski trying to get it right. Usually they will prep two or three pair for each skier on race day. Factoring in how much of the course is in the shade, whether there is enough downhill for the skier with better glide to get away, etc. The skis and boots themselves cost about 3x that figure. Since skating started in the mid 1980s the structural design of the ski itself has morphed at least three times and that's also true of the skate bindings.
If you go back and look at what they called set track up until the mid 1970s that's a bit of a revelation too....
Bad Wigins wrote:
Coyote Montane wrote:
your knowledge is a mile wide but and inch deep; Bjoergen is now the all-time leading medalist
No, she's not - 11 to 12, and she's still 2 behind on GOLDS. That's what matters - no golds and she's done, forever devastated.
As long as we're knowing things.
Do you ski?
Anyway, female all time medalist?
She's got a great shot at other (gold) medals in relays (team sprint or 4X5). At 36 or 37 a long shot at the sprint but anything can happen in the final. And individual/interval start short race coming up (10K freestyle) might be her best shot.
That said, I'm happier that Kalla won. Diggins 5th, all time best Oly finish for USA women. She was just hanging on.
Coyote Montane wrote:
That said, I'm happier that Kalla won. Diggins 5th, all time best Oly finish for USA women. She was just hanging on.
I missed this at one in the morning broadcast and subsequently watched it on Swiss TV for just about the best internet video quality imaginable and then once again on BBC1 or perhaps English Eurosport. Diggins achievement escaped mention both times around and I finally had to hear about it on local news. Shame on me for not paying attention to anybody but the first three in a magnificent race; it might have helped if I was a big enough fan to maybe be aware of what the USA kit looked like too?