No love for Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins this morning? WTF??

Big Olympic Fan wrote:

As for getting fast skis - it goes in this order - proper camber of ski (flex), structure, wax. Get those right and you will have rockets. Spent some time in the wax room at a World Cup - athletes spent more time testing flex and structure than wax.

I wish all you guys would stop posting that although I have no doubt that it is true. You see my skis are almost all of them purchased opportunistically and now I know for sure how I ended up with so many "Wet" skating skis here in Colorado.

I still have the early and late versions of the Fisher Revolutions both undrilled and unprepped; once upon a time I thought I could at least skate on crude narrow snowmobile track with them but it turned out that they hurt my lower back even on near-perfect commercial set track instead.

Start young? wrote:

Beyond that, Diggins is an interesting case study. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think she is the only athlete on the US cross country team, male or female, who went pro after graduating from high school, instead of following the college route. Her development has followed a more European model to success...

Kikkan, Andy Newell, and Liz Stephen never did any college skiing and were selected to the US Ski Team (also having a home club) when they were in high school or soon after. The Bjornsens skied only one year of college each. I think Reese Hanneman never skied for a college (though he graduated from one eventually), though he never got USST support.

zzzz wrote:

Start young? wrote:

Beyond that, Diggins is an interesting case study. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think she is the only athlete on the US cross country team, male or female, who went pro after graduating from high school, instead of following the college route. Her development has followed a more European model to success...

Kikkan, Andy Newell, and Liz Stephen never did any college skiing and were selected to the US Ski Team (also having a home club) when they were in high school or soon after. The Bjornsens skied only one year of college each. I think Reese Hanneman never skied for a college (though he graduated from one eventually), though he never got USST support.

Yeah, it's slightly more common for US Team athletes to have chosen not attend college, or on a 1/4-1/2 of full load rate if the classes fit into their training environment/location. Simi Hamilton, Scott Patterson, and Sophie Caldwell are the only ones that I can think of that followed the NCAA route.

zzzz wrote:

skier wrote:

More likely a liquid and/or rub on block. The race service has gone pretty far since the days of simple Cera F.

Eurosport 1 had little scenes of the service during the race, and I thought I saw powder and rotobrushes, but I might have been mistaken.

It's possible it could have been a 'slurry' of powder and liquid, but I can't imagine they would be able to apply powder in the usual way with a hot iron.

formerskier wrote:

I too was curious what they were doing to the skis between legs. Do the top coats really make a difference on cold, firm snow? I recall Cera F having its biggest positive effect in fresh, warm snow, but that was 20 years ago.

The pure fluoros have been advanced quite a lot in the last decade and they are now formulated for just about as many different snow conditions as the paraffin waxes are. Still though, the powder does make less of a difference in colder and drier snow. Interestingly, the rub-on blocks and liquids have developed so far that the powder step sometimes doesn't help if the former layers are nailed down correctly. One theory for this is that the powder 'softens' the base when a harder base is preferable.

Waxing plays a huge role which makes the sport really frustrating on certain days. All things equal, the wax is the dictator obviously.

I’ve had races where I had the better engine, but the other guy had a better wax job (I’d bury him on all the uphills, but he’d put distance on me coasting downhill).

So ya, just the way it is.

On days when your wax is just right and you know it, it adds tons of confidence to your effort and encourages you to hit that red line even earlier in the race.

skier wrote:

zzzz wrote:

Kikkan, Andy Newell, and Liz Stephen never did any college skiing and were selected to the US Ski Team (also having a home club) when they were in high school or soon after. The Bjornsens skied only one year of college each. I think Reese Hanneman never skied for a college (though he graduated from one eventually), though he never got USST support.

Yeah, it's slightly more common for US Team athletes to have chosen not attend college, or on a 1/4-1/2 of full load rate if the classes fit into their training environment/location. Simi Hamilton, Scott Patterson, and Sophie Caldwell are the only ones that I can think of that followed the NCAA route.

Logan Hanneman, Scott Patterson, Tyler Kornfield, and I think Caitlin Patterson skied NCAA.

Also re skis and ski prep. Yes it's a combination of ski flex and base, base structure, and waxes. And at the top levels these can become crucial because the skiers are so good and fit. Nevertheless the great ones find a way to get on the podium.

I worked for a junior team that produced some of the top skiers, including a couple on the usst. But caveat that with I didn't work directly with those skiers at the time but their younger peers at the J3,J2, and J1 level (12 to 17 or 18). There are both powder and liquid sprint it waxes that you can apply between rounds and the are effective for about 2 or 3 km at most. But prior to that you add structure based on conditions and add layers of glide wax that is ironed on. The proces takes 20 to 30 minutes per pair but a couple of techs can knock off a dozen or so in the couple hours before a race.

Coyote Montane wrote:

skier wrote:

Yeah, it's slightly more common for US Team athletes to have chosen not attend college, or on a 1/4-1/2 of full load rate if the classes fit into their training environment/location. Simi Hamilton, Scott Patterson, and Sophie Caldwell are the only ones that I can think of that followed the NCAA route.

Logan Hanneman, Scott Patterson, Tyler Kornfield, and I think Caitlin Patterson skied NCAA.

I should have said I was just looking at the national US Ski Team athletes.

Good to see that Diggins was picked to carry the flag at the closing ceremonies. That is getting some love.