Fri 21/02 - Olympic ladies' Slalom

Wed 19/02 - Olympic Men's Giant-Slalom

Sat 15/02 - Ladies Olympic Super-G

I tried to figure out something about ladies Super-G but I came out with nothing.

As seen so far all the events of alpine skiing have been quite crazy, with all the favourites (but Hoefl-Riesch in ladies combined) flopping big and outsiders popping up everywhere.

That's all about this kind of events, where all that matter is being in one of the top three placements, so everyone push to 100% and the space between a big performance and a failure is very narrow, and failure in alpine skiing is also a line just 1 meter wider that results in few cents of second loss. 

Only safe statement about what has happened so far is: "team Switzerland is in excellent form".

And Swiss have few good arrows to shoot in ladies SG: Gut, Gisin and Suter.

Hoefl-Riesch, Maze, Fenninger, Mancuso, Hosp among the others, while Goergl seems to be not liking this snow- she's always dangerous though-, Weirather is in the starting list but her forms should be vary bad after an injury in training that had her missing the downhill, same for Gagnon and Rebensburg -always struggling with health issues.

Opposing these last names is all I advice. With spring-time temperature an early starter winner is much possible, I'm not doing any specific name though as it didn't pay so far (I haven't posted the outcome of ladies DH, a bit late eh?):

Wed 12/02 - Ladies Olympic Downhill

Again quick, short before the race starts.

I think there are more chances of a top 3 finish for those ladies: Cook and Goerlg in raising shape, Kaufmann-Abderalden and Kling revelations of this season.

Mon 10/02 - Ladies Super-Combined

No time for divagations, just the picks

Sun 9/02 - Olympic men's Downhill

Alpine skiing officially debuts at the Olympics.

Downhill slope has been describe as very though mostly because of the variations, words of US downhiller Steven Nyman (@BelieveinSteven):

Some compare the course to Bormio, some to Beaver Creek, surely is tough being like a very fast Super-G. Many athletes tried it in sections along the three training runs and are only putting the pieces together for the race.

Bode Miller was the most solid, but I wonder if going 90% (though not 100%) for three training runs couldn't have tired him. Big pressure from media and fans on him as well.

Also solid looked Austrian Matthias Mayer and Norway's flag bearer Aksel Svindal.  

Outsiders names are Kueng (this season revelation), Italians Fill and Innerhofer and Frenchman Theaux. I'd call out of the battle for top positions Guay and Paris, both dealing with mid-season injuries and lacking of form.

From training results Carlo Janka looks like a possible dark horse.

Couldn't find any playable price son no bet, I'd only advice to oppose Guay and Paris.

I'll leave few graphs I made, I find it helpful to better understand one's shape through the season.

Place and final position in this season downhills

Miller's form was a crescendo, though his Super-G's results gives the idea much better

Svindal is just impressive

Guay DNFed in Wengen and missed Kitzbuehel

Fill's daughter was born few days before Kitz, he wasn't on with the head.

DNF in Beaver Creek

Found this interesting Swiss Janka and Defago peaked in Kitzbuehel, race closer to the Games (DH left, SG right)

#RoadtoSochi - last leg

Yep, this is pic is disturbing.
Neureuther in Germany uniform.

Missed last weekend, mostly because I knew weather conditions would have been tough and thought few would have race 100%, but actually it resulted in a nice weekend (or rather Sunday).

Now on to Sochi and the Olympics games.

Little could be said about the hills, though as usual for this kind of events are going to be easy (to boring) slopes.

Test races were held there in 2012 but I wouldn't relate too much on those results.

Anyway here are few videos.

Hans Knauss on Men's Downhill slope

And Mr.GS Ted Ligety trying Giant-Slalom's slope. This one is a bit more relevant as it happened only last year and Ligety exclusively trained on that slope. All this to add to the fact that this hill perfectly suits to Ted's style.



Schedule of the Games:












This week I'll try to make some graphs about main athletes results and forms, I had thought for long. Should give better idea of current shape of some of them.