Than_Bogan

Your weight is almost 100% on your rear foot. This will make it impossible to progress in the slalom course, so if that is your goal, I wouldn't think about anything else until fixing that. In all honesty, I would try switching which foot is forward. This will feel terrible, but if video shows that it causes you to use your (new) front foot, then it may save you a LOT of frustration in the future to just bite the bullet now. Barring that, or in addition to that, spend some time skiing with only your front foot. With you rear foot not even attached, you'll have to weight the front foot and learn to balance and steer with it.

Bah. Another reason not to buy a new boat. 2021 and we can't tow one measly human without special fuel?

Veering off topic fast, but indeed Doris Burke has been excellent for a long time! She's one of my favorites in any sport.

The role that Tony plays is very hard, and I absolutely could NOT do it better. But as a viewer, I would prefer that he defer all of the analysis to the pro skier(s) at the desk with him.

Top two are both named Fred. Matt Rini and Corey Vaughan were both promising. Would like to hear more of them.

@RichardDoane I've skied with Cord a bit when he was on the East Coast, and I know he dials gates later. Just harassing him while being incredibly impressed.

@Bruce_Butterfield When the fall occurs is the "discussion." Otherwise I would agree clear 0.5. (I personally still day 0.5, but not CLEAR 0.5 due to when one might declare the fall to have occured.)

Jeezmon. Next time, at least have the courtesy to make it LOOK difficult! At least I can feel better about myself by calling a zero on the gate! :) #RussianJudge

I meant his *entire* bindings, which likely include his foot. :) If you believe that position can happen that far after the ball at 41 without the feet inside the line, then we disagree.

In that frame that @Horton has captured, his bindings are well into the 1/2 zone. They only have to cross the buoy line. BUT I think the argument here is when exactly has he fallen? One of the other perspectives makes it seem like that moment is long after he has lost skiing position (which is never regained). In the end, it's too close to be sure it's a 1/4, so I'd call 1/2. But it's close.

@aussiemc where the ski is pointed is not part of the criteria. Are you suggesting that implies something?

I'm a fan of lifting up each ski while on two. Whichever one is more comfortable to stand on should be the front foot.

Kinda fun to look at these and they seem to generally make sense. I assume the women's trick were mostly (or all) supposed to be + not -? And Aliaksei was probably +1200 not +200?

On the one hand, it's an incredible privilege to be grumpy about the announcers and other aspects of a broadcast of a major waterksi tournament! On the other hand, that was painful. Mute required, which sucks because I want to hear the actual information about what is happening. And the inability to rewind is also very annoying. I would have ended up watching MUCH more of it if it hadn't been so hard-core about live only. As it was, I only caught a few silent passes here and there.

@bko. Nope. I believe you swapped 'em there. A score of 103 at 34mph (1 @ -39) would match up to a score of roughly 104 at 36 mph (2 @ -38). If you want to convert the other way, you do a touch of algebra to get: b4 = 6/7 * (b6+16). So you'll see that 103 at 36 mph (1 @ -38) maps to 102 at 34 mph (6 @ -38). That particular spot is a little silly, because who can't get at least 0.5 on the next pass? But it's just an approximation.

ZBS is a scoring system and it does not imply that there is an equivalence in difficulty. It allows the skier to choose what they think is the easiest way to get a particular score. If you DO want to engage in the exercise of trying to convert score in terms of difficulty, it's an opinion exercise, and here's my opinion: I claim that 36/-32 and 34/-35 are equivalent difficulty, but that as you move away from there you lose/gain a buoy with each pass because speed is more important at long lengths and the rope is more important as very short lengths. For example 6 @ 36/-35 maps to just 5 @ 34/-38, and then 6 @ 36/-38 maps to 4 @ 34/-39. But when you go in the other direction, the speed itself is the bigger challenge, so for example 4 @ 36/-22 matches up to the full pass at 34/-28. My opinion can also be expressed by a simple formula, but please please please do not think that because I included math this somehow becomes a fact. This formula is just capturing my opinion about the difficulty relationship. Let b6 = buoy count at 36. Let b4 = buoy count at 34. b6 = 7/6 * b4 - 16 (Original thread: https://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/comment/73957)

An interesting question is: who is NOT in that you feel should be considered "Masters Material?" If that list is short or empty, then we might conclude this qualifying format works well.

One version of the Infinity had the hardest 22-off bump I've ever experienced. Literally made it more difficult than -28. But they did some things to fix that, and I recall skiing some that felt great. Never drove one.

Two more questions: 1) What happened to Manon? Just not her day? 2) Did Montavon have a 6-no or did she miss the gate at 39?

(Edited. I see @EM_ is indeed in the competition.) My big question: Where did Vanessa Vieke come from? How can a name I've never heard of be "right there" in the mix to win it two weeks in a row?

No video coverage?

Australian? British? Where are you getting these ideas!? OBVIOUSLY, he is Polish.

I think we all misinterpreted your question, actually. Seems you noticed that essentially all pros are either on hard shells or Tfactors, and were wondering if there is a place for the "soft boot" style like Radar Vapor? (I do not know the answer to your question. I'm just trying to make sure we understand what you're asking.)

I'd be fine with @drew's "liberal" suggestion. Another possibility is: Don't use the tolerances for deciding any scores or placements within the event, but still give the skier the option to re-ride anything out of world record tolerance in case they want it to count as a world record. I think at the very least the hard threshold tolerance should be a little bigger for longer line lengths. If a pro men's skier is forced to re-run 38 off because one deviation was 22cm, that really feels like a big waste of time for everyone. And I purposely chose 38 as my example, because then it's a little uncomfortable for them to opt-up, since sometimes a deep -39 might be good enough in a given round, but would count as a deep 38 if done as an opt-up. For me personally, I would only want the tight tolerance applied at -41. That pass must be completed to set any important high-level record, so nobody is going to "sneak in" by using just-barely-wider tolerances.

Hah! I guess most skiers don't live near to NYC, Boston, DC, or just about anywhere in CA. I was expecting to see at least $1M based on the reactions in this thread.