A week watching Beaver

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Extensive coverage of most races on the BBC red buton (although only Ski Sunday highlights on the proper telly). Will anyone else be watching? The men's downhill's on Saturday night, 6pm GMT. So far this season half the downhill races have been won by Kjetil Jansrud, including the World Cup race at Beaver Creek two months ago, so that's him jinxed. It'll be a surprise American winner, Travis Ganong maybe.

Marcel Hirscher has been dominant in the Giant Slalom, but the home crowd will expect a win from Ted Ligety, and Hirscher has been sharing the spoils in the slaloms with Felix Neureuther.

In the women's races, it will be a surprise if Lindsey Vonn doesn't win one of the Downhill or Super-G (or both).

[Duncan Gardner]

A week watching Beaver

Chris Morrow of that ilk

[ursus arctos]

A week watching Beaver

Bad crash by Bode Miller the other day that has almost certainly ended his career.

[Mumpo]

A week watching Beaver

Been watching this the last couple of evenings. Boy, but can they shift. It looks pretty cool with all the super slo-mo and cable-cam angles too. I will have to destroy the television if the commentator uses 'podium' as a verb again though.

[ursus arctos]

A week watching Beaver

Is this NYT virtual downhill behind a paywall?

Alternate link.

Because it is pretty cool.

In other news, Tina Maze is amazing.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

A week watching Beaver

I was nearly right - Travis Ganong got silver, and Jansrud finished nowhere (although halfway down the hill was leading on split times). The 'surprise' win in the end came from Swiss Patrick Kueng.

[Twilight Johnny Atom]

A week watching Beaver

Fantastic!

The camera angles on this event gave a real sense of how exhilarating and scary downhill is.

Anyone who has ever tried to hold an edge on the outside ski while it flapped and bounced around on an icy, rutted, bumpy, off-camber turn will probably have been hyperventilating as some of those guys went down at twice their speed, probably more. I know I was.

[ursus arctos]

A week watching Beaver

Maze wins the Alpine Combined.

[Hugh Fatbastard]

A week watching Beaver

Could someone explain the thread title to me ?

I think I've mistakenly wandered into the wrong conversation.

[ursus arctos]

A week watching Beaver

The World Championships are being held at Beaver Creek, in Colorado.

[Hugh Fatbastard]

A week watching Beaver

ah, yes, well... *cough* thanks for clearing that up.

Nothing to do with Wallace and Theodore after all.

Or anything other than skiing, I suppose.

[Janik]

A week watching Beaver

Looks like I'm going to Beaver Creek on holiday later this winter. Anyone been? Any comments? We are going right at the end of the season, like the week prior to Easter. Will there be any snow left?!?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

A week watching Beaver

The home crowd did indeed get their win from Ligety in the Giant Slalom, and he brought it in from 5th place after the first run, too. Hirscher was second, but will be favourite to retain his slalom title tomorrow.

[ursus arctos]

A week watching Beaver

Janik, I've never been to Beaver Creek, but the Colorado resorts in general are excellent, and people I know who have been to Beaver have been very positive about it (it being a bit less OTT than its neighbour Vail and much less precious than Aspen).

They are officially open until mid-April, so I would expect snow, though the conditions are likely to be more "spring-like" (i.e., icy) than mid-winter.