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Beijing - 1st Olympics 100% man made snow
- Thread starter deadheadskier
- Start date
abc
Well-known member
Better yet, the US table tennis Olympic team for Tokyo includes a former Chinese national team member!
But nobody cries foul when the US is on the receiving side! (well there were, those "home grown" players whose place were taken by the transplants).
Still, I didn't hear BG crying "traitor" on that account!
But nobody cries foul when the US is on the receiving side! (well there were, those "home grown" players whose place were taken by the transplants).
Still, I didn't hear BG crying "traitor" on that account!
I have always found it odd how many foreign athletes train in the US but compete for the country they live in especially when they win medals. The other side of this is that the Olympics would be much less exciting from a competition stand point. I would prefer better competition than one or two countries winning all the medals.
abc
Well-known member
Depends on where you live.
Apparently, the entire world's half pipe athletes train in Sass Fee in November because that's the only superpipe open that time of year!
KustyTheKlown
Well-known member
also, back to the thread title/subject, the halfpipe venue appears to be surrounded by real snow. or at least a full on ski area that covers its entire terrain and not something purpose built for the olympics maybe. i don't think this is ambient snowmaking covering all of the nearby terrian. i could be wrong but i dunno
abc
Well-known member
Yes, it's super common. Though usually it doesn't grab headlines because it's typically those who didn't make their home country's team that would go on to "shop" for another country in order to make it to the Olympics. So it's rare they got medals, even rarer gold.
But in events that has a lot of teenagers, that selection process easily breaks down and less promising kids may end up being the superstar a couple years later in the Olympics.
Gu was a promising candidate at 15. But nowhere guaranteed a spot in the US national team. By going to China, she's got a guaranteed spot. Raking in money in the way was probably an incidental thing that happened after. I somehow doubt she (and her Mom) could foresee that 4 years ago.
I used to play table tennis and follow international competitions. Years ago, there was an "incident" that a "Chinese trained" player representing another country beat the Chinese own. There must have been a similar uproar in the Chinese public, and cries to ban all top tier athletes from leaving the country to represent other countries. It was the sport's own people that came out to say "that's fair we passed on him and he proved us wrong!" Since then, there's been a large outflow of Chinese table tennis players playing for other countries. So much so one Olympic, the finals were all Chinese players against each other while representing different countries!
And back in the 70's, all international badminton competitions were amongst Indonesian players representing different countries too. The list goes on and on...
Nationalism in sports is just juvenile
That doesn't make it right. The concept is completely bizarre to me and completely makes the concept of which country has the "best" athletes or most medals completely irrelevant. If country xyz has medals from athletes that simply had their ancestors from that country and aren't actually from that country themselves, what's the point?
That may be true, but it's the ENTIRE premise underlying the Olympic Games. I guess we can look forward to some post-national future utopia where they are all competing for whatever multinational corporation's team shells out the most money.
drjeff
Well-known member
Lindsey Vonn had some commentary this morning about the snow on the race hill there, that both seems quite apparent if you've watched any of the races and is playing an issue.
Apparently, racers have been telling her the the snow on the courses is very inconsistent, with sections that are rock hard (what they want) and other sections that are chalkly and grippy. The techs are tuning for the rock hard snow, which makes their skis very grabby and inconsistent when they get to patches of the grippy snow. Pretty obvious when one watches the slow motion replays of some of the truns with how the skis tracks smoothly through some turns and grab and bounce and chatter (which more spray) through others
Apparently, racers have been telling her the the snow on the courses is very inconsistent, with sections that are rock hard (what they want) and other sections that are chalkly and grippy. The techs are tuning for the rock hard snow, which makes their skis very grabby and inconsistent when they get to patches of the grippy snow. Pretty obvious when one watches the slow motion replays of some of the truns with how the skis tracks smoothly through some turns and grab and bounce and chatter (which more spray) through others
abc
Well-known member
I totally don't see the medal count as part of the Olympic spirit (if there's any of it left, that is).
Per event, especially team events, I do see the point of "nation". But more as a means to limit the entry number during the qualifying round. Individual event, "nation" is really nothing but a limit on how many each country can field to that event. Without it, some events will have entirely athletes from one single country!
(granted, now that many athletes had figured out ways to "represent" their grandparents' country, that limit gets subverted to some small degree)
Is this just a hazard of man-made snow or is the real headline"first Olympics held 100% on snow made by men who don't know how to make snow"?
KustyTheKlown
Well-known member
Apparenrly mikaela fucked up her slalom run and missed gates and had a meltdown and sat on the side of the course while other racers ran their runs. I haven’t seen any footage or read anymore than a Facebook article thumbnail tho
drjeff
Well-known member
As I remember the snow at the last games in Souht Korea, mostly all man-made as well, was so abrasive that racers where literally "frying" their bases during each run, as the wax techs, and the wax companies didn't have anything to deal with the surface that was put down.
The reality is that when you get the arid climate that the past few venues have been in, that snow dries out and becomes incredibly abrasive, even with injection of water quite quick.
Kind of like the wind swept areas of mountains that we all know of and how funky the snow quickly gets after the wind does it's thing and strips the snow down to the base dense stuff. You get a really funky, unpredictable surface that just isn't fun to ski on, let alone race on at the speeds that they often reach with so little margin for error
abc
Well-known member
Different climate, different snow condition.
As games gone all over the world, outside of traditional European Alps, snow surfaces will likely not be exactly the same as racers expect in the Alps. I wonder what the racers were saying when in the earlier days of North America hosting the Olympics. But perhaps there had been enough international level racing in north America before the first Winter Olympic in north America (Lake Placid? Montreal)?
What I don't know is the back story as to whether there's much World Cup level racing in China or South Korea? If there hadn't been much international level racing in that part of the world, it's clearly more of a gamble to what the snow be like during the Olympics.
As games gone all over the world, outside of traditional European Alps, snow surfaces will likely not be exactly the same as racers expect in the Alps. I wonder what the racers were saying when in the earlier days of North America hosting the Olympics. But perhaps there had been enough international level racing in north America before the first Winter Olympic in north America (Lake Placid? Montreal)?
What I don't know is the back story as to whether there's much World Cup level racing in China or South Korea? If there hadn't been much international level racing in that part of the world, it's clearly more of a gamble to what the snow be like during the Olympics.
drjeff
Well-known member
There have been complaints in the past with some of the earlier races at Beaver Creek. in years when the natural snow hasn't shown up prior to the late November race dates that they typically are.
Similar type of thing. High altitude, cold, dry, windy, lots of man made snow. Just creates a very abrasive surface, but it's also one where the race crew out at Beaver Creek as well as Lake Louise, who host races every year that mother nature lets them, now have learned how to better manage the snow for a much more consistent race, which as I understand it, often involves multiple, regular water injections as race day nears to keep the snow, especially portions on exposed knolls/ridge lines that can be hammered by the wind, to manage the water content in the snow and keep the surface consistent.
I forget which World Championships is was at Vail in the past, but it was a lean snow year, and they had been in a dry spell for weeks prior to the worlds, and I remember one of the annoucers talking about the challenges the wax techs were facing since they had never run a race at about 10,000 ft, with 10% humidity and below zero temps on all man made snow and they just couldn't get the wax combo's dialed in to get the skis consistently sliding through/over the snow.
It's adverse conditions like that that have lead to many a niche item wax additive/product being developed and eventaully brought to market
IceEidolon
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Not a great look on TechnoAlpin and their course prep if it's actually snow conditions. Mostly course prep.
drjeff
Well-known member
Honestly it's more the crews in the cats and on the race crew that own this rather than the guns that made the product, and likely had it done weeks ago.
Not sure how much, or little input from the FIS the crews at the venue had in the weeks leading up the the Olympics as the bulk of the work to get the snow on the courses ready was done. Given that the media can hardly get as many of it's members into China, as well as the limits on spectators with Chna's essentail "zero Covid" approach, not sure how much in person, outside advice they allowed to happen
abc
Well-known member
You drank too much media Kool-Aid! (or limited imagination of a middle-class work-a-bee)
If you don't take enormous amount of risk, you never get to the top of the world. She did. Both on snow and on the geopolitical theater. She's already been richly rewarded at a very young age. More than most here will ever earn in our life time!
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It's true. Lasted 11 seconds then moped on the side of the trail. I thought it was a bad look as the tv just kept showing her instead of the people skiing. I have a felling a mental health break announcement is coming soon.
Lindsey starting the Mikaela excuse narrative.
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