February 7, 2012

By C.J. Feehan

The top end looks similar to last week, but further justification for these positions has now been firmly established. After consideration of the results from the UVM Carnival, Vail NorAm tech series, and UAA Invitational nordic races, there’s a shake up on the bottom as well as a new team making its debut. See the complete NCAA Power Rankings in Issue 8 of Ski Racing, due out shortly.

#1 Utah (Last week: 1) - 2011 NCAA champion Maria Graefnings returned to the RMISA circuit for the first time this season and placed first and second in her opening races. Cohee and Wilson are still delivering alternating punches in alpine. Fghting off Colorado week after week only seems to strengthen the Utes' resolve.

#2 Vermont (Last week: 2) - Stop me if you've heard this one before: how do you rattle a Catamount? Tie one paw behind its back, then blindside it in a ski race at home. In a scene tragically reminiscent of last year’s NCAAs, UVM's winning streak came to an end on its own turf. No penalty assessed for making the tough calendar call to split the battalion especially since their alpine troops at the Vail NorAms bested a handful of RMISA and national team athletes. Watch out, the Cats will have their claws back in a flash, and now they're out for blood.

#3 Colorado (Last week: 3) - Eliska Hajkova won the UAA Invitational classic race by more than ten seconds, adding to the podiums previously collected by teammate Joanne Reid. There's depth on the alpine side as well. If the Buffs can topple Utah in an invitational, rankings on the top end could get tricky.

#4 Dartmouth (Last week: 5) - The Big Green clearly got the memo and pulled out all the stops as they steamrolled the UVM Carnival. The alpine squad got its act together, and first-year standout Ben Morse snagged a giant slalom win and second place in the slalom. Both the men's and women's nordic teams have so much depth that it's hard to identify any weakness.

#5 Denver (Last week: n/a) - We're rewarding DU for showing it cards by running its alpine athletes in the Vail NorAms, a gutsy move before a hectic travel schedule to Anchorage. Espen Lysdahl and Trevor Philp's NorAm podium results demonstrate that the men's alpine team can certainly hang, but the ladies still need to step it up. Welcome to the show.

Photo of Utah's Nick Cohee by Guenther Birgmann
Photo of Dartmouth's Sophie Caldwell by Cory Ransom

U.S. Skier Will Gregorak won the men’s NorAm Cup giant slalom today (Feb. 6) in Vail with an overall time of two minutes and 3.41 seconds. Another .25 seconds behind Gregorak was Canadian World Cup regular, Jean-Philippe Roy. Rounding out the podium in third was Canada’s Trevor Philp.

Canadian Erik Read, who is in the lead in the men's overall NorAm Cup standings, placed fourth. Also in the top ten was American Colby Granstrom in eighth.

The seventh consecutive day of NorAm Cup racing will continue tomorrow (Feb.7) in Vail with a men’s giant slalom.

At the top of the Prime Ski Racing Pyramid sits emotions. It’s closest to the top of the pyramid because emotions will ultimately dictate how you ski on race day and throughout the competitive season. Emotions before, during, and after a race can cover the spectrum from excitement and elation to frustration, anger, and disappointment. Emotions are often strong and, most troublesome, they can linger and hurt your skiing long after you first experience them.

Negative emotions can hurt your skiing both physically and mentally. They first cause you to lose your prime intensity. With frustration and anger, your intensity goes up and leads to muscle tension, breathing difficulties, and a loss of coordination. It also saps your energy and causes you to tire quickly. When you experience despair and helplessness, your intensity drops sharply and you no longer have the physical capabilities to ski well.

Negative emotions can also hurt you mentally. Your emotions are telling you that, deep down, you’re not confident in your ability to ski well and achieve your competitive goals. Your confidence will decline and you will have negative thoughts to go along with your negative emotions. Also, since your negative emotions are so strong, you will likely have difficulty focusing on what will help you to ski well; the negative emotions draw your attention onto all of the negative aspects of your skiing. Finally, negative emotions can hurt your motivation to ski because you just don’t feel good and it’s no longer fun.

Emotions come from past experiences in similar training and race situations in the form of beliefs and attitudes you hold about skiing and racing. Your perceptions from the past impact your present even though the emotions may not be appropriate or useful in the present situation. One of the most difficult aspects of emotions is that they become habits that can cause you to automatically respond with a certain emotional reaction to a particular circumstance even when that emotional response does more harm than good. When you see World Cup racers on TV, for example, totally “lose it” after a bad run, you are likely seeing emotions that are self-destructive.

Negative emotions can be provoked by many occurrences during a race including a bad mistake, a slow run, or even seeing one of your rivals have a good race. All of these events share two common elements that lie at the heart of what causes the negative emotions: You feel that the path to a goal is being blocked and you don’t seem to have control over removing the obstacle. For example, you have a bad first run in an important qualifying race and your frustration and anger hurts your confidence and focus (and skiing) for the second run.

Let the Punishment Fit the Crime

I have seen extremely negative emotional reactions to the smallest failures in my work with ski racers. Skiing out in training or a wobble in a race produced negative emotions that seemed to be out of proportion to the magnitude of the failure. In both cases, the punishment did not fit the crime.

Be sure that your emotions are proportional to what causes them. Ask yourself whether a few mistakes are worth the ill feelings you might experience. Are you being fair to yourself?  When the severity of the punishment exceeds the seriousness of the crime, you have lost perspective on how important ski racing is in your life. It might be worth getting really upset if you didn’t get into the college of your choice, but are these strong negative emotions worth feeling over some relatively unimportant mistakes?

You should also consider whether these emotions help or hurt your skiing. Negative emotions can raise the level of your skiing at first because they increase your intensity and get you to fight harder. After a short time though, your performance will likely decline and it usually spirals downward into a vicious cycle from there. Negative emotions usually hurt your skiing and keep you from reaching your goals. Why would you allow yourself to experience emotions (e.g., frustration, anger, depression) and act in ways (throwing a tantrum, choking, giving up) that ensure failure rather than help you achieve success?

It’s okay to be disappointed when you make mistakes or ski poorly. In fact, you should feel that way. It means that you care about your ski racing and want to do better. But when your negative emotions are strong and self-defeating, particularly for how minor the crime is (you will make a lot of mistakes during your ski racing career), then you need to look at why your punishment far exceeds the crime you committed.

Consider the best ski racers in the world. Our sport is very important to them because it is their life and livelihood. How upset do they get when they ski poorly and have a bad race?  Considering how important ski racing is to them, most great racers handle mistakes and bad skiing pretty well. In fact, one reason why World Cuppers are at the top is because they have the ability to control their emotions rather than their emotions controlling them.

Emotional Threat vs. Emotional Challenge

In recent years, I have found that a simple distinction appears to lie at the heart of the emotional reactions racers have to our sport: threat vs. challenge. At the heart of emotional threat is the perception that winning is all-important and failure is unacceptable. Emotional threat is most often associated with too great an emphasis on winning, results, and rankings. Pressure to win from parents, coaches, and athletes themselves is also common. With these beliefs, it’s easy to see why ski racing would be emotionally threatening.

Emotional threat manifests itself in a “negative emotional chain” in which each psychological link separately and cumulatively causes you to feel badly and hurts your skiing. The most common reaction to a threat is the desire to avoid the threat. There is often a loss of motivation to ski and compete, especially when the threat of a poor result is immediate, for example, when you are behind after the first run (think of giving up as a major loss of motivation). Emotional threat also suggests to you that you’re incapable of overcoming the situation that is causing the threat, so your confidence is hurt and you’re overwhelmed with negative and defeatist thoughts. The threat produces strong negative emotions such as fear, anger, frustration, despair, and helplessness.

The emotional threat also causes anxiety and all sorts of the negative physical symptoms. The previous links in the emotional chain make it nearly impossible to focus effectively because there are so many negative things pulling your focus away from a useful process focus. All of the previous links in the chain ultimately result in a poor race result and little enjoyment in your skiing.

In contrast, emotional challenge is associated with your enjoying the process of ski racing regardless of whether you achieve your goals. The emphasis is on having fun and seeing a race as exciting and enriching. Ski racing, when seen as an emotional challenge, is an experience that is relished and sought out at every opportunity. Thus, emotional challenge is highly motivating, to the point where you love being in pressure situations.

Emotional challenge communicates to you that you have the ability to meet the demands of ski racing, so you’re confident and filled with positive thoughts. Emotional challenge generates many positive emotions such as excitement, joy, and satisfaction. It also stimulates your body to achieve prime intensity, where your body is relaxed, energized, and physically capable of skiing your best. You also have the ability to attain prime focus, in which you’re totally focused on what enables you to ski fast. All of these links in the emotional challenge chain lead you to Prime Ski racing, great enjoyment in your skiing, and achieving your ski racing goals.

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About Dr. Jim Taylor:

Dr. Jim Taylor knows the psychology of ski racing! He competed internationally for Burke Mtn. Academy, Middlebury College, and the University of Colorado. For the past 25 years, Jim has worked with many of America's leading junior race programs as well as World Cup competitors from many countries. He is a clinical associate professor in the Sport&Performance Psychology graduate program at the University of Denver. Jim is the author of Prime Ski Racing: Triumph of the Racer's Mind and his latest parenting book is Your Children are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear From You.

Click here to go to the Inside the Ski Racing Mind Archive

The Chamonix combined favored the speed skiers. The track calls for good gliding skills, which few slalom racers possess, and the one leg of slalom was on a short 627m (685 and change yards) course. Romed Baumann was terrific in a very cold downhill leg, leading everyone by seven tenths and all but two men by well over a second. A decent slalom skier, the race was his to lose.

As the race unfolded, his confidence could only grow. For right up until his run it was the 27th fastest downhill leg performer,  Alexis Pinturault, holding the lead.

The slalom guys could not compete. Ivica Kostelic, winner in six of the last seven World Cup combineds, couldn't unseat Pinturault. He wound up sventh. The gold medalist of last season, Aksel Lund Svindal couldn't get the young Frenchman out of the leader's spot either, finishing up fourth. Beat Feuz also fell short into third place.

With a 3.27 second margin over Pinturault, and with enough slalom skills to have earned a World Junior silver medal six years ago, Baumann held nerves in check and went after his second career World Cup combined win. He would register the 16th fastest slalom leg. His margin was down to 2.54 at the first interval and 1.9 at the second. The downhill lead, however, was easily enough and he collected the win by 1.1 seconds.

"I was only interested in a clean slalom run without a big mistake," Baumann said. "It is just dawning on me what I've done."

The Canadians, with an incredibly successful weekend in the books, skipped the race entirely, as did American Ted Ligety. Bode Miller was a downhill DNF. Erik Fisher led the way in 23rd, the only North American to score.

Gepa image
cover photo of Wiley Maple by Gepa

The SCOOP
by Hank McKee

Men's World Cup combined, Chamonix, France, Feb. 5, 2012
Equipment
Skier, skis/boots/bindings
1 Baumann, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
2 Pinturault, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
3 Feuz, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
4 Svindal, Head/Head/Head
4 Theaux, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
6 Defago, Rossignol/Lange/Rossignol
7 Kostelic, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
8 Fill, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
9 Mermillod Blondin, Fischer/Fischer/Fischer
10 Innerhofer, Rossignol/Rossignol

Men's World Cup combined, Chamonix, France, Feb. 5, 2012. ... It is the 26th race of the men's 45 (44) 2012 World Cup schedule. ... the third of four scheduled combineds. ... It is the 34th race hosted at least in part by Chamonix. ... and 11th combined.

It is the second career World Cup win for Romed Baumann the other also in combined, from Sestriere Feb. 22, 2009. ... It is his third podium of the season having placed second in downhill at both Kitzbuehel and at Chamonix in Saturday's race. ... He is the first Austrian to win a combined since Dec. 11, 2009.

It is the third career World Cup podium for Alexis Pinturault, his first in combined. ... All three of his podiums are second place results. ... It is his second podium of the season after placing 2nd in GS at Soelden in October. ... Four of his best five results have come this season.

It is the tenth career Cup podium result for Beat Feuz and his third in combined. ... Eight of his podium placings - including all three combined - have come this season

North Americans: Erik Fisher matches his eighth best career score with his first combined points.

Standings: Ivica Kostelic (seventh in race) maintains the lead of the World Cup overall standings 941-825 over Marcel Hirscher (did not race). ... Feuz is third at 793pts. ... Ted Ligety (did not race) is seventh with 578pts and Bode Miller (DNF 1st) eighth with 562. ... Erik Guay (did not race) is top Canadian in 14th with 386pts. ... Kostelic leads the combined standings 236-220 over Feuz with Baumann third with 145pts. ... Ligety is ninth with 85pts. ... Austria leads the mens' Nations Cup 4500-2821 over Switzerland. ... Italy is third with 2284pts. ... The US is fifth with 1581 and Canada seventh with 1124.

FIS World Cup
Men's Super Combined

American Julia Mancuso isn't settling for just podiums this season, she is after wins. And she knows she can do it.

It's that confidence that fueled the Squaw Valley, Calif. native today (Feb. 5) as she earned her first World Cup victory of the season and the sixth of her career in today's super G race to cap an American sweep of this weekend's wins in cold Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Mancuso, the 17th racer to take on the challenging, 38-turn Kandahar course, was the first skier in 15 starters to finish with a green leading time after skiing a brilliant run and taking a 0.45-second temporary lead on Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather - the first woman out of the gate today. Two starters later, Austria’s Anna Fenninger was the only racer to truly threaten Mancuso’s time, 0.13 seconds back to finish second. Weirather would hang on to finish third and match her result in yesterday’s downhill here.

It was Mancuso’s first World Cup win since the final downhill of last season in Lenzerheide, Switzerland and her fourth podium of this season. Before last season's win, Mancuso had gone three year's without a victory.

“At this point in my career, I really want to win. I go into every race with that attitude and I knew that today - just like the other super G's - you have to put it all on the line,” said Mancuso. “You can't hold back at all if you want to win a super G. When I crossed the finish line, I thought, 'if that wasn't good enough, then I don't know what is.”

Mancuso, a three-time Olympic medalist, won her fourth world championships medal - a silver in the super G - on the same hill last season.

Mancuso said the flat lighting conditions made the race difficult or all racers, a situation she thrives in.

“It was very difficult, I really couldn't see much, but that was what you had to do - you had to go for it. I knew that I kept my speed the whole way despite a couple of mistakes,” said Mancuso. “I stayed in there, it was a rough ride, but I managed to make it to the finish.”

It was a beautiful but bitter cold day in the Bavarian Alps. The sun shined bright in patches of the course while temperatures hung around -4 F and winds were calm throughout the race.

A total of 14 racers failed to finish the 1.2-mile tricky course set by French coach Nicolas Burtin. Five of the first seven racers missed the same gate near the middle of the course before coaches were able to radio up and stop the bleeding. The most notable DNF of the day came from overall leader, American Lindsey Vonn, winner three of five World Cup super G races this season.

Vonn was thrown an extra curve ball at the start when course officials delayed her about five minutes to repair a gate after she had taken off her outer layer in the freezing start house. Vonn attempted to stay loose and warm during delay by slapping her legs unbuckling her boots. Once finally on the course, she was in trouble early on, throwing her skis sideways near the top of the hill. Vonn then misjudged a tight, right-hand turn, cutting it a bit to close and throwing herself off line, and missing the next gate. Just yesterday, Vonn recorded the 50th World Cup win of her career in the downhill.

Two starters later, overall threat Tina Maze of Slovenia also failed to finish. 

Vonn maintains clear control of the overall rankings with 1350 points, holding a 482-point advantage on Maze in second.

Vonn said she was not sad or disappointed in the outcome of today’s race, instead she takes momentum from this weekend. “I'm third in the giant slalom World Cup and I've never been in that position before,” said Vonn. “I'm going [to Soldeu] to win. The giant slalom World Cup title is definitely a goal.”

Fenninger, who had a breakout performance here last season winning the super combined world title, secured her fifth podium of the season a month after taking her first World Cup win in a GS at Lienz.

Weirather is also enjoying the best season of her career. Today’s result marks her fourth Cup top-three finish, all coming this season in speed events.

Defending overall champ and Garmisch local, Maria Hoefl-Riesch repeated her result in yesterday’s downhill, again falling just short (a tenth of a second) of the podium in fourth place, 0.55 seconds behind Mancuso.

Mancuso would be the only American woman to finish today. Laurenne Ross joined the lengthy DNF list after losing her balance on the Himmelreich jump near the top of the course and missing the following gate. Teammates Stacey Cook and Alice McKenis also failed to finish. Leanne Smith did not start following a fall in one of this week’s training runs.

“We wanted to win this thing and every single one of our athletes had that attitude. The plan was to go like hell and see what the outcome is,” said U.S. head coach Alex Hoedlmoser. “Lindsey was on a good track and maybe we could have had one and two, but she caught a little bit of an edge and couldn't finish. And the other athletes were hammering too, but to win, you just need one in the finish.”

Marie-Pier Prefontaine led three Canadian starters in 16th followed by Larisa Yurkiw in 36th and Kelley VanderBeek in 38th.
 
The women’s World Cup now moves to Soldeau-Grandvalira, Andorra for a pair of giant slalom races and a slalom Feb. 10-12.

MORE TO COME

Image by Gepa

The SCOOP
by Hank McKee
Women's World Cup super G, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Feb. 5, 2012
Equipment
Skier, skis/boots/bindings
1 Mancuso, Voelkl/Lange/Marker
2 Fenninger, Head/Head/Head
3 Weirather, Atomic/Tecnica/Atomic
4 Hoefl-Riesch, Head/Lange/Head
5 Curtoni, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
6 Marchand-Arvier, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
7 Goergl, Head/Head/Head
8 Schnarf, Volkl/Tecnica/Marker
9 Moser, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
9 Merighetti, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon

Women's World Cup super G, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Feb. 5, 2012. ... It is the 23rd race of the women's 40 (now 39) race 2012 schedule. ... the fifth of seven super G's. ... It is the 93rd World Cup held at least in part at Garmisch or Partenkirchen. ... the 25th super G. ... Garmisch also World Championships last season and in 1978 and the 1936 Winter Olympics.

It is the sixth career World Cup win for Julia Mancuso. ... Her second in super G, the last scored Jan. 19, 2007 at Cortina. ... It is her first Cup win at Garmisch. ... She won the silver medal in SG at Garmisch a year ago. ... It is her first win and fourth podium of the season. ... She is the fourth US skier to claim a win this season. ... It is the 13th US win of the season.

It is the eighth career World cup podium placing for Anna Fenninger. ... and sixth in super G. ... It is her fifth podium of the season and fourth in SG (also won the GS at Lienz). ... It is her second best result at Garmisch having won the gold medal in combined at World Championships last season.

It is the fourth career World Cup podium (without a win) for Tina Weirather and the first not earned in downhill. ... All of those podium placings have come this season. ... It is her second third at Garmisch in two days.

North Americans: It is the second best career result for Marie-Pier Prefontaine. ... All of her other five scoring results have come in GS. ... It is her second score of the season, the other from Aspen Nov. 26.

Standings: Lindsey Vonn (DNF) maintains the lead of the World Cup overall standings 1350-868 over Tina Maze (DNF). ... Maria Hoefl-Riesch (fourth in race) is third with 796pts. ... Mancuso in sixth with 607pts. ... Marie-Michele Gagnon is top Canadian overall with 136pts. ... Vonn maintains the lead of the super G standings 313-293 over Fenninger. ... Mancuso moves to third with 269pts. ... Prefontaine is top Canadian in 38th with 15pts. ... Austria leads the womens' Nations Cup standings 3758-2528 over the US with Italy third at 1826pts. ... Canada is 11th with 269pts.