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?):

Fri 24/01 - Kitzbuehel men's slalom and Cortina ladies' downhill 1

The most important weekend of men's tour kicks off with the slalom. This is kind of special also because run 1 will be at 12 while run 2 at 17, big gap between the two runs. Note that run 2 will be a night run (watch out for Yuasa)

Pick from ladies' SG was a winner: Schmidhofer 16th finished more or less were I expected her, Ruiz-Castillo made me panic scoring the best intermediate time at Int1, but then she was awful and finished 30th.
Goergl won confirming her good form, and so Hoefl-Riesch close behind and getting more and more close to the Cup; good third place for Nici Hosp.
Maze and Mancuso looked in better shape, and so american Cook; on the other hand Gut, 19th, in falling down almost vertically.

On to men's picks.
Kristoffersen, though he'll start with a worse bib in run 1, is performing better than Moelgg.
Hargin and Neureuther are closer to their opponents than odds suggest. I think Hargin is in great form and that the bad result in Wengen was because of the snow conditions, that didn't let him ski aggressively as he does.
 

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.

Ladies and gentlemen Super-G - Garmisch and Kvitfjell

Ladies with another Super-G in Garmisch, the true one on the proper slope.

h2h Lindell-Vikarby - Cook - pick Lindell-Vikarby 4 units @1.71 Won +1.84
Bordeline odd but it reflects the reality in the right way: Lindell-Vikarby usually is into a top 20 placement in Super-G while Cook struggles a lot and hardly finds a top 30 placement.

And two picks based on the run for the year's finals in Lenzerheide:
h2h Ruiz-Castillo - Hosp - pick Hosp 2 units @1.90 Won +1.8
Hosp is first excluded but only two points away from qualification.
She's been 5th on friday, while has rested yesterday.
Ruiz-Castillo is 9th postion so she's sure to be qualified.

h2h Moser - Sterz - pick Moser 2 units @1.76 Lost -2
Moser is last placed in the run for the finals, though a very little gap. Sterz is 18th and can be quite sure to be in.
Few number difference in the starting list so little weather variables.
Moser is doing quite well here in Garmisch

Super-g also for the men in Norway, yesterday wind played a big role so I don't feel like gamble that much also today.

Mayer top 3 1 unit @4.60 Lost -1
Mayer is doing a great season and he's improved a lot. In Super-G his worst placement is a 7th place.
With some top racers like Marsaglia and Reichelt that seems to have a little fuel left Mayer might find a spot in the podium

+1.64

Ladies Super-Combined - St.Moritz

Pick: Zettel to podium 1 unit @6 win +5
(Sorry, odds from yesterday now it a bit lower).
Zettel is in a good form recently and can do well enough is Super-G, and then get a good number to start the slalom, where she's a specialist, with the slope in good conditions.
Actually Maze, Vonn and Hoefl-Riesch are favoured but possibly at least one can fail and Vonn and Riesch haven't impressed so far this season.

H2H Zettel - Hosp, pick Zettel 2 units @1.93 lost -2
(Sorry again)
Same motivations as before, Zettel form is better than Hosp's one.

Podium: Maze, Hosp, Zettel

+3