Alpine Skiingworld cup 2021/22
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Let's analyze a 2021/22 World Cup that will experience a mini revolution, even if the values shouldn't change too much. For Pinturault and the real Kristoffersen it could be much harder, at a fundamental female level the programming choices linked above all to super-g ...
Saturday 15 May 2021 16 minutes reading time
The change proposed by the FIS, after the strong pressure received from athletes and federations themselves in recent months, which will ratify a 2021/22 season on June 2 next with the practically absolute balance between technical and fast races, obviously also changes a series of dynamics related to the fight for the World Cup.
Not only for the number of races, but also for the number and type of races faced in some locations. At the level of the women's calendar, in reality the "revolution" is less marked, also due to the marked versatility of almost all the favorites to the crystal ball: there will be 9 races for each discipline, in addition to the parallel of Lech / Zuers, when in 2020 / 21 there were 8 descents on the calendar (7 disputed, with the cancellation at the finals in Lenzerheide), 7 super-g (now 6), 8 giants and 9 slaloms. Slopes? Levi's double slalom is confirmed, Sankt Moritz takes a double super-g (blue fiefdom, so beware), Crans-Montana will have two more descents and Cortina will return to the "classic" calendar with the two speed races and Crans-Montana confirms the double descent already experienced last January, but there are no epochal changes, with the return of Killington and the post-Covid North American races, in addition to the new "attempt" in Maribor.
It is clear that, compared to the 2020/21 calendar with only 15 fast races (13 played), if we talk about the three top Italians, the change is certainly in favor of Sofia Goggia, who among other things has found an excellent level in giant and will therefore have 27 races (in addition to the parallel of Lech / Zuers, which is likely to play) from points. Continuity in super-g is crucial for the Bergamo-born, where she can make havoc but also make a lot of mistakes, says her historian.
Returning to the podium of the general as in the season of 13 podiums, the 2016/17 one when Sofia finished in third place with 1197 points collected, is more than possible even if the competition is of the highest level.
If Federica Brignone is the most versatile athlete, the cancellation of the combined is a "less" important for the winner of the 2019/2020 cup, who will have to carefully evaluate the programming starting from the double slalom of Levi and the same fast races of Lake Louise, where she often gave up on the descents. Ditto, being able to compete for points from the slalom to the downhill, for Marta Bassino who in any case we will see more frequently between the narrow poles, but it is from the super-g that she can pull off a lot and it will be that specialty, probably, to tell us if the Cuneo will be able to fight for the top also in general terms.
Programming that will be crucial, in a year with 37 races and the great goal of the Beijing Olympic Games in February, also for the big favorites to the "coppone": Mauro Pini, Petra Vlhova's new coach, certainly wants the best from the Slovakian at the Olympics to bring home the first historic medal in Slovakia, and it is clear that the new calendar certainly does not go in the direction of an encore for the holder of the crystal ball, unless Petra finds the maximum of competitiveness in giant and does very well in super-g.
The main favorite, but it would be with any type of calendar, returns to being Mikaela Shiffrin also because the American champion will return to play at least some super-g and, with her exceptional average points between giant and slalom, she can also afford to give up the descended. From the queen discipline to the giant, she will have a similar situation to Goggia, a Lara Gut-Behrami who openly criticized the calendar of the last season and, in this situation, will have great chances to play for the second World Cup of her career (after the one won in 2015/16).
Much more difficult for Corinne Suter, who can suffer in several super-gs (we already think of the two from Sankt Moritz) and obviously does not have the giant on her side, despite having improved a lot among the wide doors in the last year. Michelle Gisin? He is one of the very few, if not the only big one in the next season, who can tackle every discipline from the descent to the slalom with high level results, but obviously he has lost something in speed and will have to know how to manage himself, thinking that this already year fell in the second part, when until the end of January he was still in full battle with Vlhova and Gut-Behrami.
Curious to see Wendy Holdener, with slalom, giant and super-g available (but without combined and only one parallel, for the Swiss it will be very hard), and Katharina Liensberger for whom the giant, where she touched the world title but it has been quite discontinuous during its magical slalom season, it will be the keystone to try to fight at least for the final podium, from which it has not gone very far this year.
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The new philosophy of the World Cup calendar could definitely change things especially in the male field.
Yes, because if the fast and technical races are even in terms of numbers (18 and 18, then there is the parallel of Lech / Zuers) in this case there is a substantial difference between the dispute of 11 descents and 8 giants, as well as between only 7 super-gs and 10 slaloms. Alexis Pinturault, for example, built his success a few months ago with the 700 points (out of the 1000 available) collected between the wide doors, much less influential (but the historian of his career says so) the slalom, where he collected 354 pt in 11 races.
Basically, two descents have been added (there were 9 in the 2020/21 calendar, but only 7 were disputed), the number of super-gs remains the same, with two giants and one less slalom. With a performance like that of last season, for Odermatt until the end and for the unfortunate Kilde until the moment of the accident, the Swiss and the Norwegian (who will have the unknown factor of the post-Crusader return) automatically become the favorites for the 2021/22 World Cup, where we will see, among other things, two descents in Lake Louise, Wengen and Kitzbuehel, as well as two super-gs in Beaver Creek (and other innovations such as the sacrifice of speed in Garmisch to compete in two slalom, one of which removed in Kranjska Gora, and the double giant in Alta Badia).
"Doubles" that make us reflect on the general classification potential of Dominik Paris, who on tracks like Lake Louise (once) and above all Kitz (three downhill) won and did almost always well, much less in Wengen even if very few days before the injury he had taken his first podium on the Lauberhorn; it has always been said that the pure sprinters would no longer have a chance of victory in the general, now the door opens wide also because the downhillers (even if by now almost all the super-gs are mini descents, frankly) will have 11 races, but remembering us always with a higher cancellation risk than in other disciplines.
"Domme" will need an average of points of the 2019 level, that is the second half of the 2018/19 season and up to the double in Bormio at the end of December, to try to fight with Odermatt, Kilde and Pinturault, as he did in 19/20 until Crac al Crusader pre Kitzbuehel. A calendar that will make Henrik Kristoffersen's cup dream more complicated, who had the ideal situation (with 21 technical races available) in the year just ended and really wasted a great chance. The Norwegian will be able to be in the game only if he regains his level in the giant, but with 2 specialties against the 3 of Odermatt and Kilde (if we want also of Pinturault, who has never done all the super-gs) he will have to be practically perfect for win, traveling at average points from ... Hirscher.
Mayer and Kriechmayr? Among those who first raised the disparity of fast and technical races, the two Austrians, compared to Paris, may hope to collect something from the giant, but for now let's talk about crumbs and with this new programming they will focus everything on downhill and super-g , now having some chances to play it.
In the fight we feel like inserting another couple of names, namely those of Marco Schwarz and Loic Meillard, but in both cases the elimination of the combined, specialties where the Austrian and the Swiss are of excellent quality (not surprisingly gold and bronze in the world championship race in Cortina 2021), but also of the same parallels with only the Lech test, is a blow to the top hopes, given that the Carinthian is a guarantee in slalom but not in giant, vice versa the Swiss he finished 4th among the wide doors in the specialty cup and 9th in slalom, despite having lived the best season of his career, confirming that even athletes of this caliber will always struggle to have a podium performance in both technical specialties, which certainly easier for downhillers on disciplines that are closer to each other such as downhill and super-g.
And this should also be discussed for the future, while considering it right to reduce (in this case cancel) the numerical difference of races that had become too large between the two "hemispheres".
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