For me, Super G is the most difficult sport in all of the World Cup. It is almost like a downhill but with no training rounds.
Visualization is important in any event but it is particularly important in Super G where the speeds are so high. When you see an athlete do this, it means they are trying to get the rhythm and tempo of the course building confidence, coming into particularly blind turns.
An example of a blind turn is in Kitzbuhel. Coming over, you are coming at 45/50km/h and you can’t see the next gate. Aksel Svindal (Norway) taking a little bit of a conservative line, giving a little bit more shape when he comes down to the “Hausbergkante”, not perfect but certainly on the right side of the hundreds and carrying out a lot of speed… And he’s able to maintain that line.
Alexis Pinturault (France) coming after him, goes a little bit more direct out of the “Hausbergkante” and carries a little more direct line into the bottom section and this cost him time. He goes off more direct, he catches more air, he has trouble re-centering.
That’s the challenge to a blind turn. It messes you up for several gates after, if you don’t do it exactly right.
In a race for an Olympic podium every 100th of a second matters.
In Sochi, Striedinger – he came down slightly on the left at the bottom of this run, whereas I went straight for the finish line. At the end, that comes down to roughly 30cm of distance. 30 cm seems like a tiny margin at the end and he could have overcome that with a proper reach and not taking a bit of an indirect line to the finish.
Here keep in mind this is an accumulative effect of the entire course of skiing, it just comes down to these 30cm on the finish line.
Norwegians have won four of the last four Olympics in Super G… This time I would expect the consistent presence of Norwegians on the podium but I think that Beat Feuz (Switzerland) gets the win.
Eurosport, Casa delle Olimpiadi
