Than_Bogan

Wow my favorite slalom skier of each gender just won the World Championships! Thanks for all the fun times rooting for you Jaimee and Freddie! CONGRATULATIONS!! P.S. Apparently I am deficient in nationalism, seeing as neither is U.S. I do love rooting for Regina and Corey, too, but as @rayn pointed out, how could I not root hardest for the engineer!?

P.S. Is there a video angle that explains how that wasn't 1/2 at -43? I didn't hear any complaining, so perhaps there is video that shows a clear miss of the 1 ball (or the gate, I suppose)? From just the video I saw, I'd certainly have to call 1/2.

@Horton already posted this exact link, but SURELY a guy who runs freakin' 41 off deserves his own thread!? https://www.instagram.com/p/CyWnr5jpZVs/ If this guy is the face of our sport now, we're gonna be just fine.

That makes sense. Glad I asked.

@Horton Did this get put on hold? I was a bit surprised to see your post about the Connelly so soon after the Pineapple Preview.

Wow, my list is very similar to @Wish. Probably my Peeked Interest List, in order, is: c95 -- yeah, yeah, I'm sure everyone is gasping in shock now, but it really does sound kinda awesome! Works 02 -- I'm becoming a massive Jamie Bull fan, and this ski certainly has top-notch results! Pineapple -- I just love crazy ... um ... stuff. And Parsons was probably the brain behind the N1, which still accounts for nearly all of the '38s that I've run in my life. '24 Vapor -- I'd never have time to get to the 4th ski on my list, but this sounds like it brings a unusual combination of abilities, and I look forward to seeing @Bdecker run some -38s on it!!

I think part of the definition of the (fictional) MOASS is that it works great for everyone. It's pretty much in the name Mother of ALL Slalom Skis.

@ Bdecker That's a subtle but remarkable endorsement in my mind. Many skis are really hard to get to feel right at all in cold water, much less with the same settings used for very warm water. (Off topic, but this is the one thing that prevents the Goode Nano One from being my clear favorite ski ever: That ski was so amazing when tuned perfectly, but settings seemed to not translate from lake-to-lake, and it also fell off a cliff in cold water.)

At the risk of being a little redundant with some related posts, I just wanted to say THANK YOU for an incredibly enjoyable season of professional water ski coverage. Every season keeps getting better, and your team really listens to input and clearly puts in massive hours. I am especially appreciate of all of the pros who double as announcers and interviewers -- and do it SO WELL. I can't believe it's over and I'm looking forward to TWBC 2024!! (Don't' worry, I'll still have plenty of criticisms and half-baked ideas to share. Even the best can get even better!)

The jump is inside the buoy line and I don't have a particular problem with that. However, I do have two things to add related to slalom geometry: 1) An S-turn sometimes actually sends the ski wider than the course width. Remember the problem is carrying to much speed, and the second move of the S turn is to go back outbound to lengthen your path. Of course, at 9.75 it's not possible to be any significant amount wider than the course width! 2) It's surprising how late you can appear in an S-turn and still make it back before the gates. The sneaky thing is that you'll be travelling quite a bit backwards relative to the boat as you swing from up high to back behind the boat. I think theoretically, with enough momentum coming in, the path could actually go backwards, but more commonly it just goes forward much less than you'd think.

I like the season points a lot. Obviously it's not the main reason to watch, but it's probably the most meaningful ranking of the pros as pros.

@Jordan Like today maybe!

Can you take your ski off at the end of your ride without loosening your laces? Yes. Indeed that is typically what I do with my T-factors, and it's not even that difficult. I, too, have spent a LOT of time thinking about bindings. I've even designed some and actually patented an attachment method (that I am no longer pursuing for reasons that may become obvious as you read on). The two most important factors to consider in choosing the safest double-boot setup FOR YOU are: 1) What do you do as a skier? What type of falls do you take? How often do you take big crashes? 2) What level of care and maintenance are you realistically going to do? Each system has potential liabilities, and you need to try to select the liabilities that are the least likely to be a problem for you. Releasable boots inherently have the possibility of releasing when they shouldn't. This can be made less likely with vigilant inspection, testing, and maintenance. But these kind of falls can be very dangerous. Fixed rubber boots are unable to release in certain specific scenarios, especially sudden-stop OTFs and certain extreme twists. Personally, I average less that one "big crash" per year, but I am terrible at maintenance. Given this combination, I conclude that releasable boots actually increase my chance of injury significantly. T-factors will never release when they shouldn't, and generally will release when they should.

Soo, upon reading this rule for about the 5th time, I actually now DO seem room to call this 1/2. There are only two things that should cause us to call it a ride-over (and therefore a miss). Otherwise the rule clearly states that we're awarding points. 1) Move it significantly from its position. Nope, I don't see that here. Crushing a buoy is not changing it's position much at all. 2) Temporarily sink it. Also nope and for the same reason: the buoy gives and therefore does not sink. So now I'm claiming that this should be 1/2, and that if we want crushing of modern safety buoys to be called a miss, we need to add that explicitly to the rules. Personally, I'd prefer that this situation score, and for that perhaps a "clarification" should be added to make it obvious that crushing is neither displacing nor sinking and therefore points.

The text of the rule surprised me a bit as it doesn't mention the feet/boots at all. If that is indeed the governing rule, then I'd say no points for that buoy. But I had the same impression as many others: that it could be scored depending on where the foot went next. Did we all just imagine that rule?

I completely disagree with this sentiment. In a sport that doesn't require an opponent, head-to-head is just superimposed in an illogical way. Just like all of the field events in Track & Field, it's just you against the event. Whoever does the most/highest/furthest is the winner. Head-to-head in slalom produces results that make no sense, like someone getting into the next round with a far worse score than somebody who was eliminated. In tennis, there is no choice but to play head-to-head, because the sport requires an opponent. We are forced to live with the possibility that somebody gets a weirdly easy path through the tournament. In sports that don't require an opponent, we don't have to let that happen! And, thanks to other rules of slalom, there is a HUGE incentive for the second person in a head-to-head bracket to do "just enough" to move on, and I never never never want to watch one of the best in the world simply stop doing their sport. Heck, the worst part of even non-head-to-head format is when the last skier does just enough to win and then skis home. I'll say it again: I tuned in to watch people ski, not stop skiing. In fact, the head-to-head format actually encourages the first skier to stop skiing. Unless you're up against Nate, do you really want to risk turning the 3 ball at -41, knowing that 3 is gonna be really hard to beat, but 2.5 may allow the second guy to just "take the win." If there are folks who love watching head-to-head, then have some events for them. But PLEASE do not make all pro events head-to-head!

My thought is that *most* of the discussion should assume an expert audience. If anyone is seeing serious waterskiing for the first time, the main takeaway should be that this is a serious sport, and that is best achieved simply by *treating* it as a serious sport! The only "nod to the newb viewer" that I think might be a good idea is to point out the specific hard parts. I was recently reminded that even a VERY good technical athlete, seeing slalom for the first time, focuses on the turns, thus completely missing the most fundamental challenge of strength and technique. Pointing out the massive forces the skier must hold and the incredibly short amount of time to get from 30ish to 60ish mph, are things that anyone can grasp and be amazed by -- but that aren't obvious just watching it. It's tempting to try to explain that shorter ropes are harder, but actually the viewer CAN see that. They may not know why, but it's obvious that longer lines look very easy and eventually shorter lines lead to failure.

I was super-impressed by the great insights, enthusiasm, information, and genuine fandom that was displayed by literally all of the announcers on this event. Apologies if I forget anyone, but I wanted to specifically call out really excellent announcing by Brian Deitrick, Kevin Bishop, Allie Nicholson, Freddie Winter, Marcus Brown, Corey Vaughn, and Rob Hazelwood. Seems unfair that these folks are such crazy amazing athletes AND truly excellent behind the mic.

It feels terrible, especially on my on-side, if I use a dead-straight rear boot: Balance is a problem and even the good turns seem too hard to reliably hold. However, this kinda bums me out because the rotated rear boot also exaggerates my bow-leggedness and makes it really hard for my knees to go where they ideally should.

For some reason I read this entire thread, and I don't think anyone mentioned that in your videos you are trying to get up on very rolly water. This is MUCH harder, especially for a first timer -- it's constantly moving you around, adding to the difficulty to get set. So in addition to all of the other very accurate advice (most importantly to just drive to Corey's and get this done!), you really want to learn on calm water. If you ever have a chance to take ski video again, do it from the boat and WAY more zoomed in. I'm amazed people were able to come up with any relevant advice from those videos. Now get in the car and go to Corey's!! 🙂

Nice skiing there, Dr. Jim! 😉 But seriously CONGRATULATIONS!!

Really enjoyed this discussion! The Masters is so far off my radar (no TWBC == not worth watching) that I didn't even realize there had been an "incident." Had to search around. Overall, found Bob Marley's comedy to be most informative :).

Well I certainly agree with Mike Tyson on that!! Maybe not totally convinced by @Horton's arguments, but does help me understand where you're coming from.

I totally disagree with @Horton on a top-level point: I think this forum is exactly the right place to critique this film. I realize the irony in telling the creator of a forum what the forum should be for, but I can't imagine a better place to gather some reactions from one of the likeliest audiences. I loved the very beginning. I thought anybody serious about anything could relate, and would be drawn in to learn more about waterskiing. I was getting excited about sending this to all of my track athletes who always ask about what competitive waterskiing is. But after the intro, it wasn't the film I was hoping for. It quickly turned to more of a documentary about TWBC. Mildly interesting to me as a TWBC fan, but not something that helps make this unknown sport become less unknown. If I do end up sending a link to this film to non-water-skiers, it will be with a message of "watch the first 5 minutes."

Wow it's 2023! My kids have all graduated high school. But I haven't! A few years after I started this thread, in late 2017, I began a new adventure as a high school track coach. This is the true passion of my life right now, and a reason I am less involved with waterskiing than I once was. Sure, there are high schools in every town in the country, but part of the addiction of coaching is working with people all the way from "what is the high jump?" to competing in the All State Championship. And that means there is always a group that I "owe" three more years. Just yesterday I was working with a freshman of each gender who have a real shot to someday break our school records in the PV -- [brag alert!] both of which were set in the last two seasons by my athletes! So I think I'm far less likely to move now. That said, if anybody ever gets a ski site going in New Mexico, DO let me know! 🙂