Ted Ligety strongly dislikes the new Giant Slalom measures imposed by FIS

on Friday 19 August 2011
by Federico Casnati
photo by Federico Casnati

Begin to assemble the echo of the protests the changes implemented by FIS measures to GS from the season 2012/2013. A complaint is not a normal athlete's child in search of fame, but the holder of the World Cup of specialties, as well as Olympic and world medals winner: Ted Ligety.

In the summer heat probably the words of Ted slip away without leaving too many traces, but had the merit of bringing into the open a situation not exactly setting between the teams, athletes and FIS. As you know fact from the 2012/2013 season, the turning radius of the skis will be increased from the current GS 27mt to 40mt minimum, with a consequent rise in minimum lengths to 195cm. So you go to a single ski: 40m radius and 195cm, with sidecuts virtually erased.

The American Ligety snow from New Zealand takes the issue came up frequently, from the pages of his blog with an interesting article. Ligety, with teammate Warner Nickerson (both athletes Head), it has got to try the first prototypes of GS skis still negative impression. We quote his account: "they sucks" that purged a lot, means that do not go at all well. In fact, Ted continues, "you can not bend without resorting to hand-pushed at every turn." To give a better impression recalls the slides in black and white "I could not imagine how the scene reminded me of silent films in black and white of the first day of skiing." And Ted continues strongly, with a duplicate analysis, and historical accidents.
On the one hand, recalls how 17 years in virtually the radius of the curve has not changed: in 1996 World Cup in the radius was similar to today, about 28mt.Qualche year before, in 1993, Rainer Salzberg (manager of the Head and rider in year 90) was skiing with a 32mt, and to understand how far back you should go Ligety, ironically, recalls: "Schindler's List was a movie, the president push his father had just passed the keys to the White House to elect Clinton". Tomba skied even with these measures. We must go back 80 years to find the skis with a radius of 40 meters!
From another point of view Ligety remembers how in the race only three of the top 30 athletes have been injured in the giant slalom. "I wondered if the GS is" super "dangerous and the answer was NO" Ted says in his article. It reminds us of the injury to the ligaments of Thomas Fanara in Beaver Creek in 2009 for being caught in the cloth of the doors (in fact, since then the cloth is no longer blocked, but attached with a strap, ed.)
Then it was the turn of Hirscher who broke his ankle, but in this case Ted remembers how it was because of poor preparation of the snow, "started with bib number 2 and there was a big dip in the ice, within which slipped skiing "the unfortunate Austrian.
The third injury to the ligament has been to Benny Raich, however, was running on a track designed for women, with rays of the curve lower. The U.S. concludes: "if you ask me if three accidents in two years is an acceptable level of danger, I say so".

In fact, says Ted, the FIS has not been very far-reaching changes to the regulations in all he has done, always with a view to reducing accidents. The lowering of the plate and raising the standards of height did not reduce accidents .
Ted closes the article saying, will benefit athletes such as Aksel (Svindal, ed) physically powerful, but penalized Hirscher Fanara and who (like himself) take advantage of much sidecut. "I'll dig out the VHS and spolvererÃ² Olympics in Sarajevo and will begin to study the legendary Phil Mahre step and Ingemar Stenmark."

Here is the link to read the whole article on his blog .

The considerations of the friend-teammate Warner Nickerson

NDR: All data are extrapolated from an article by Ligety.

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