3 buoys for an overspeed

[eleeski]

How much does the buoy count change with speed differences? I contend that three buoys is a fair adjustment for a 2mph speed change.

 

Many skiers need to ski at a different speeds than AWSA specifies. MM could benefit from skiing 36 and making the elite world rankings. Fresh M3 and some outrageously talented older guys also are chasing world ranking scores. I personally hope to ski senior world wournaments when I age up to a(n even) slower speed. And ski in fair contests to qualify. Optional speeds with an appropriate handicap adjustment might be a reasonable competitive playing field.

 

One of the top women slalom skiers aged up to an AWSA speed that has no world equivalent - she was forced to either accept a penalty in AWSA tournaments or ski at a speed that was different from what the world tournaments require. Switching around speeds impacted her scores adversely - by more than 3 buoys (and the US senior team needs her scores!). Maybe the competitiveness of the US teams are dependant on rule adjustments.

 

Eric

[Than_Bogan]

I think the problem is it's not a constant gap. For example, comparing 36/-32 to 34/-35 I'd call them almost identical in difficulty, implying ZBA scoring could just be used as is. But when things start getting extremely short, it seems like the gap becomes a little smaller. I feel that 34/-38 is just a touch harder than 36/-35. And although I don't have stats, my vague impression is that guys who can run into -39 (or beyond) at 36 mph don't seem to pick up more than a few buoys when/if they go to 34.

 

And this makes sense from a theoretical standpoint, because there is some point at which the rope is simply too short to be possible (for a given height), at which point 34 and 36 are equally challenging (both impossible). So it would be expected that the difficulty at 34 and 36 is converging when near to that point.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, I'd say 34/-22 is a fair amount easier than 36/-15. So a skier in that range probably picks up more than 6 buoys.

 

So I think it would be possible using a combination of theory and actual results to create a pretty fair conversion function. But I don't think a simple "X buoy difference" can cover all cases.

[Horton]

If we just had all the 34 guys on LeeSkis that would be handicap enough

[skidawg]

Or if all the 34 guys downed a steel reserve before skiing, that would be about the same handicap, don't ya think.

[RichardDoane]

JTH - don't b dissing the leeski, I tried one last year and it turned remarkably well

[LeonL]

Not exactly following the thread, but nearly. In the past I've heard that some people believe that at the present time 41 at 34 MPH is impossible, while 41 at 36 has been run many times. What is the consensus here? Can 41 at 34 be run?

[Than_Bogan]

Hm, who's calling 41 at 34 mph impossible? That seems like a HUGE stretch, and can be added to the long list of "impossible" things like running a 4 minute mile.

 

Has somebody like Parish or Nate Smith ever tried it? Frankly, I'd expect them to cakewalk it. If not, I'd be awfully curious to hear the specific problems they had. I'm hard pressed to anticipate a reason that it could be harder than 36, much less impossible. (That doesn't mean it's not true -- just that I can't think of a reason.)

[jedgell]

I remember reading an article several years ago that Mapple got 3 or 4 at 43' off. So it's definately possible.

[9400]

The event Jedgell was referring to was run on a old, old floating course in a C tournament. The scores were 2 and 4 at 43 off. 41 has not been run in an R tournament at 34.2 mph, but it would not surprise me if someone does it this year.

[kfennell]

There are definitely people who are capable of running 41@34 in a record, I have seen ward have a perfect 1-2-3 like he was going to run it and then go 1" inside 5, so yeah it will happen soon.

[MrJones]

To the original question, I think at the very high end ~3-4 buoys is about right. I also don't think this should be used as an actual tool in scoring as it will be different for each skier. (heavy vs. light, etc)

 

As for being able to run 41 at 34. 41 is insanely hard at any speed, but don't think that if Andy, Jeff R., etc decided that is what they wanted to do in a record tournament it would go down. That is why I think the concept of a 34 mph "world record" is silly. The competition is great at 34, but the record is the record and that is at 36.

[Horton]

I heard yesterday that Nate was out of 3 and on the way to 4 at 43 in practice this week....