Tue 14/01 - Ladies Slalom Flachau

Results of Altenmarkt DH, then (luckily?) I didn't have any other bets on Sunday's races.

Today Night Race in Flachau, to determine who's Yuasa among the ladies.
Previous slaloms were won by Shiffrin and Marlies Schild, two win both.
Few names showed enough consistency: Gagnon is solidly in the top 5 bot hasn't got a podium yet, today she's bib #1 and her coach is setting run 1, she comes from her first WC victory, everything seems to point in her direction; Nina Loeseth, although starting with high bibs scored three top10 finish; one last hot name is Bernadette Schild.
Maria Riesch has a good tradition in Flachau, but more than going for the win she'd rather go for points and increase her WC lead.

Picks for tonight.

Huge odds for Zettel and Nina Loeseth: although Zettel is underperforming in slalom she's got a good tradition here, Hansdotter is underperforming as well, so I think it's a very tasty price; as said before Loeseth is constatly in the top10, while Pietilae-Holmner before Bormio's 2nd place had a 20th place and didn't finish the other two slaloms.

Smaller stakes on Eklund and Feierabend. Hosp doesn't look good in slalom, she lacks of reactivity, of that fluency of movements you need in slalom (just look how she wasted over 1 second in the slalom run of the combined). Daum results are close to Feierabend ones, but Daum is achieving those results with better bib numbers than Feierabend, whom is improving: she was #45 in Levi at the start of the season.

Courchevel - SL Ladies results

Very little green, obviously better than a red.

Actually shocked by Schild, or the Schilds, as Marlies won and younger sister Bernadette was 3rd.
Holdener was 9th, more or less where I expected her, surprise was Schild, I believed her a step behind all this yougsters but no, she's still got it.
Anyway Austria was globally good with the Schild sisters 1st and 3rd, Zettel 4th, Kirchgasser 5th, Thalmann 7th (career best) and 2nd best time in run2, Daum 10th and Hosp 13th.
My explanation to this, beside the fact that they all are actually good, is that the snow was "strange", it got rotten very fast forming big grains, and deep trails appeared nearby the base of the posts. Austrians usually are the best in such conditions.

As said Thalmann was good, and is in a great period of confidence, and that's great since she used to get DNFs too often.
Eklund was 11th, she is very precise not aggressive, in fact there's consistency in her results very few DNFs, but on the other hand she's still missing a top result -she's got time for that. Yesterday I think she chocked in run 2, was 4th after the first leg and I believe she's never been placed like that before.
Duerr and Strachova were lethargic their movements were slow, I'll add at this club also Maze and, surprise surprise... Shiffrin 12th with two bad runs, no errors just lack of her usual brillancy.

Unimpressive Swenn-Larsson 15th with two average runs, better from Feierabend 19th but with a higher bib.

Big disappointment was Pietilae-Holmner. Actually her run was too short to be commented, but irony she went long exiting a gate with a very close angle and missed the following gate (my opinion: on a snow with more grip she'll managed to stay in), Poutiainen got difficulties at the same gate but somehow she made the turn on only one ski, the internal one moreover, stayed in but with a big loss of time. Other mistakes came in the second and she eventually went off. Shame.

Courchevel's slope is a bit lively: there are humps which can play bad trick depending on the course setting, inclinations changes here and there (flat-steep-steeper etc...), a long flat section before the finish line. The snow was bad

Tue 17/12 - Courchevel - Ladies Slalom

Mid-week slalom, second of the season, for the ladies. Strange that it's in the morning - mid-week races use to be night races: more fashinating, more TV audience etc...

Slaloms where held here in 2011 and 2010, to say how things changed since the last time: Shiffrin was bib #38 and didn't finish run1, Vonn was bib #16 while now she isn't ranked anymore in SL starting list.

2011's top5 was M.Schild, Poutiainen, Zettel, Kirchgasser, Maze.
While in 2010 it was M.Schild, Poutiainen, Maze, Pietilae-Holmner, Zettel.

Made few picks, easy ones because it's only the scenod slalom of the season so "trends" are yet to show off:

Marlies is 2/2 here, but now she's older, she's had a year-off because of injury, harldy she'll repeat those performances. Holdener is a nice young who's doing well I'd rate her in the top15 of slalom in WC.

I'd rate Swenn-Larsson much better than Feierabend, and also Swenn-Larsson is in the second group of the starting list (bib 8 to 16) while Feierabend is 34th. 

Better shape also for Pietilae-Holmner showed in GS where she's a steady top10 despite the high bibs, in slalom she's in the first group (bib 1 to 7).

In the double picking Eklund and Thalmann, both showing better shape, Thalmann scored two 3rd place in Nor-Am and European Cup slaloms, Eklund won that EC slalom. While going through Strachova and Duerr recent races I've found that both haven't competed in slalom after Levi, racing instead Giant-Slalom (with no relevant results) and surprisingly Super-Gs and Dowhnills.