schroed

Is 10 year old Jake Abelson going to be level 10 in trick? He tricked 6050 points in B1 at nationals last week. That would have been enough points to win open men trick. How would the open men trickers feel losing to a 10 year old kid? Would that kid want to trick against grown men? Forcing him to ski open when he's 10 years old doesn't seem like a good thing.

Word on the street is that Barton Rachwal won with 2.5 @ 39. Jason Peckham got .5 @ 39 (not sure what place). Grubbs made the podium at 5th place. So, I think Paul Turner is off the podium with Surdej and Fizer on it somewhere.

Update on M3 slalom: Steve Grubbs told me he ran 4.5@38 and is sitting in 3rd place with 3 left to ski.

I think we finally killed it. I'm getting a "service temporarily unavailable" error now on the main URL. Anyone on site out there know what's going on in M3 slalom?

Anybody else trying to use the live scoring web page or app (waterskiresults.com)? It doesn't seem to be working for me. I was trying to check in on M3 slalom scores and it just comes back with another option to select the event after I hit submit.

@jimbrake - Paul was measuring it for me and set it up. He used the head of the calipers to get DFT.

I rode the NRG yesterday and it felt so good that I decided to make the switch right before Nationals. Hopefully this risky move will pay off next week. Here are my settings: 66", bindings at 29 9/16" to front. Fin: 6.964, 2.4695, .728, wing 7 degrees. A few other people tried them at a lake near my house yesterday and 2 of them bought the ski on the spot.

There's a pic of Ryan Canepa riding it circulating on the home page of D3 skis: http://www.d3skis.com/

I rode a prototype a few weeks back. I'm hoping to make the switch after nationals. The ski definitely turned for me with little effort. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I felt like overall I was skiing with less effort and less load on the line. I tend to ride a bit back in the turn and sometimes dip my shoulders to get a ski to turn. On this ski I was able to stay more upright and level in the turn and the ski came right around for me. As for settings, I can't remember where the fin was on all the settings. I know the depth was at 2.504 which was much deeper than I'm running my depth on my Arc-S. Give it a try!

At least he was going man speed and not old guy and 10 year old speed.

@Bruce_Butterfield - Thanks for your response and I totally agree with your point that you need to instill in your kids that you have to work hard to achieve your goals. I also agree that the "show up and get a trophy" mentality is detrimental. Further, I am totally prepared to have the talk with my son about how he may need to work harder and perform under pressure in order to qualify for nationals. However, let me make a couple points on this subject related to my original post: 1. I don't think that my son who has landed his first jump in a tournament has earned his way to the National Championship on jump alone. However, I do know that he qualified for regionals in overall based on his ability in slalom and trick and by the fact that he was willing to learn how to jump. He had the courage to go over the jump ramp (BTW - Thank you Terry Winter for going over the jump ramp with him for the first time), practiced jump at our lake, recorded a jump score in a tournament, and achieved an overall score that qualified him for regionals. Thus, he now has the opportunity to qualify for nationals through placement at the regional championships. 2. You either agree with the rule that the top 5 skiers at any regionals are qualified for nationals (regardless of scores or number of participants) or you don't. I agree with this rule to encourage the top skiers from all of the regions to participate in nationals. It is unfortunate that many divisions in many regions have very few overall skiers. Currently the Western Region has only 8 B2 skiers that have registered a jump in the last 12 months and thus only 8 overall B2 skiers in the region. There are plenty of other divisions with similar numbers in the Western Region. So, are we really trying to put into place an exception to this top 5 rule that states that even though you placed in the top 5, you are still not qualified for nationals because your scores are not good enough? That doesn't seem like the right answer. Maybe skiers in any division would look at the overall scores from the prior year and be motivated to ski overall as way to qualify for nationals. That motivation could result in more competitors and more competition the next year. My original post was more a complaint over the rule that you have to have a non-zero score at regionals for any event if you don't have a level 8 score in order to qualify for nationals. This rule could potentially limit the number of overall skiers at the nationals in all age divisions.

I know my wife's favorite skier to watch.... Terry Winter...from the boat. A funny story: a couple weeks ago Terry was at our lake and getting ready to ski on the dock. My wife was sitting around on the dock and I told her to jump in the boat. She did and Terry went out, ran 41 off and got 1 @ 43. My wife got out of the boat smiling and saying how awesome that was. She even got on the phone with her mom and couple friends and told them how cool it was to ride in the boat watching someone run 41 off at 36 MPH. I thought it was interesting because this was coming from a women that has been around water skiing a long time, sits through countless tournaments in the summer watching me and my son ski, and rarely gets very excited about water skiing. This experience goes to show how exciting it is to watch a top level pro skier from the boat. I just wish you could capture that experience on TV better so more people would be interested in watching water skiing.

I'm in. Horton - I think I just Paypal'd you the money. Do you need any other entry info from me or is that it?

@ToddL - Don't forget the following rule: For those qualified by placement in an event without a Level 8 ranking, scores from the current Regionals or immediate past Nationals must be above zero in the event. This rule is really bothering me due to my 10 year old son's situation. This is his first year in B2 and his first year jumping. He just landed his first jump in a tournament last weekend and qualified for regionals in overall. He really wants to go to nationals but his only realistic way to qualify at this point is to place in the top 5 in overall in B2 at regionals (he's level 7 in trick and slalom, level 4 in jump). Right now there are only 5 B2 overall skiers registered for the Western Regionals so obviously he has a really good chance at placing in the top 5 overall. Even if a couple more skiers sign up and he zeros in jump he still could potentially place in the top 5 overall. My problem is this: if he doesn't land a jump at regionals, he can't go to nationals. So, do I wait to buy a plane ticket until after regionals at a much higher price or do I book it now and hope he lands a jump? I understand why this rule was put in place such that really good skiers in one event can't place in overall when they're getting a 0 in one event. However, lets face it, getting 0 in trick and 0 in slalom is pretty rare (I know, missed gate on your opener is a 0, but that's a whole other discussion). So, I think this rule was put in place so people like me that don't jump don't go out there and cut and pass on three jumps just to get an overall score and placement. However, the way this rule is written for having a non-zero score at regionals is problematic. Couldn't this rule be written such that the skier has to show an attempt at a jump by going over the ramp rather than a non-zero score? What if the jumper gets hurt on the first jump and doesn't want to take their last 2 attempts. Are we saying, oh well, you're hurt right now, you're getting a zero, and therefore you're not going to nationals? That doesn't seem right. BTW - I know my son is not the only one in this situation where they're trying to get to nationals by placing in overall at regionals and have a potential of having a zero in jump. Shouldn't we open it up to the top 5 in overall in the region regardless of what their scores were at regionals? If you want to stop the cut and pass in jump problem, just state you need a non-zero jump score at some time during the ski year and need to make a jump attempt at regionals.

@brettmainer - Kudos to you for starting this thread. I think the discussion on this thread is important for the future of a national championship. After skiing 16 out of the last 17 nationals (I missed one year due to a broken collar bone) and having my son ski nationals the last two years in Boys 1, here are some of my thoughts: 1. The one round format does give more skiers a chance. I've placed second twice with skiers that had much higher averages than me in the field. If nationals would have been an elimination format, I don't think I would have placed as high. So, I for one like the one round format for the same reasons Brett mentioned. 2. On the flip side of my first point, the expense of traveling for one round of slalom is an issue. Figuring out a better solution to this objection is important. Perhaps changing how practice is organized/run would help so that people are assured they'll at least get one additional ride would help (even though it is practice). In Idaho, I practiced twice and had my tournament ride. So, I didn't ski just once. Having a parallel tournament that skiers could ski in could help. A couple years I skied in the Big Dawg finals along with the nationals. That definitely made the trip more worthwhile. I don't think having the Big Dawg is the right anwser, but I think having another tournament that skiers could participate in that's run in conjunction with nationals would help. 3. Night events like the night jump and Big Dawg finals helped (let's not get into the unfortunate turn of events in San Marcos. Point is, a lot of people turned out for these type of events). 4. Having the US Open run in conjunction with Nationals would be cool. I remember going to my first nationals at Bel Aqua (as a spectator) and watching the US Open somewhere around 1992. I then got to walk over to Lake 2 and watch some of my friends from my college ski team compete. That was cool. Maybe we could bring the US Open back so that more pro skiers would be there. My son certainly liked seeing Nate Smith in Idaho. Perhaps running the qualification rounds for the US Open during the day and having a night finals would be cool. 5. I think you can have both a national championship and a festival like atmosphere. 6. Having your kids ski in nationals is both fun and provides many teaching opportunities. My son came out of the water crying after his slalom run. That moment gave me a great opportunity to put things in perspective for him. Even though slalom didn't go as planned, he made many friends with kids from all over the country and had a great time. 7. Having nationals in different parts of the country is good. Broadside did an awesome job and brought many people to the Boise area that probably would have never been there. I enjoy traveling to new places for nationals. Perhaps AWSA should make it more attractive for sites to host nationals so that more sites would be willing to host. 8. I really enjoyed watching the events this year from a spot where I could see multiple events going at the same time. Multiple times I walked down the grass area between the lakes and was able to watch some really good jump events on one lake and slalom on the other.

I agree that ability based divisions would be really good for the sport. However, I do think you need some age group and gender division as well. I don't think many 45 year olds would be happy beating a 10 year old kid even if they were close in ability. If you look at mountain bike racing, they already have a model for the combination of ability based and gender/age groups. Mountain bike racing ability groups are novice, sport, expert, and pro. Then they have age groups in those ability divisions. For water skiing, I don't think we have the numbers to support all the divisions that mountain bike racing has. However, I think you could easily split up water skiing by gender, have three age groups (juniors, adults, and seniors) with three ability divisions in each (novice, sport, expert). You could then have the Open divisions on top of that. That would give you 9 divisions per gender which is close to what we have today (plus Open). I would think the age groups would be: juniors under 18, adults 18+, seniors 35+. The ability based groups could be based off of the AWSA averages. Max speeds and jump ramp heights could be set for each division based both on ability and age group. For example, the max speed for novice juniors male slalom could be 30 MPH, sport junior male slalom 34 MPH, and expert junior male slalom, 36 MPH.

I like eleeski's idea of allowing overall skiers to ski in their age divisions for an overall score and still ski in a Masters or Open division for placement. I don't think trying to combine an Open or Masters score in one event to age group scores in the other two events will ever work fairly. Conditions, drivers, boats, lakes, and even the mentality of a specific event can all change scores. By mentality I'm mainly talking about a persons confidence. What if in M4 everybody is missing 38 and you're the top seed. You may start worrying about why everybody is missing 38, loose confidence, and miss the pass. Alternatively, if you're skiing in MM and everybody is making 38, you may have the mentality that if everybody is making it, then I can do it too. My point is, it's way to difficult to equate scores fairly for a single event like slalom even if the rules are the same. There is another option. Why not let people qualified for Open or Masters in one event ski in all 3 events for overall if they want? To me, that seems like the easiest solution and may encourage more overall skiing at the Masters and Open divisions. I know of one MM slalom skier that would have skied MM trick and jump for an overall placement if he was allowed. Right now at nationals there is nobody in the MM jump division and only 3 people in MM trick. Would the trickers mind if there was another skier in their division to ski against who was there mainly for an overall score? I wouldn't think so.

This subject keeps coming up again and again and we can't seem to find a good solution. I personally think that having open divisions and masters divisions are good things. These divisions allow the elite in the sport to compete for titles regardless of age. I also think that having the best skiers in the nation attend and compete at nationals is a good thing. Here are some questions to consider: If we eliminated the Open division at nationals would people really want Nate Smith competing in his age group? Do the M4 skiers really want Jeff Rodgers competing in his age group? Do you think guys like Terry Winter and Chris Rossi would want to ski in M3 at 34 MPH at nationals? Don't you think Jeff Rodgers would want to compete with guys like Greg Badal (who is out of his age group) for a national championship? If we eliminated these divisions at nationals, would guys like Nate or Jeff even attend nationals? If we eliminate Open and Masters at nationals should USA Waterski setup a separate national championship for these divisions? I personally would not want a separate national championship for Open and Masters skiers. I think that would create more dilution in the sport and less participation in the traditional nationals. That's not what we need right now. So, my answers to these questions lead met to think that we should have an Open and Masters divisions in regular tournaments and at Nationals. The real problem seems to be how we determine who skis in these divisions versus their age groups. To solve this problem, I do think there should be some sort of mandatory rule put in place to force skiers into these divisions based on their USA Waterski averages. I believe USA Waterski is considering a "level 10" be put in place that would require all level 10 skiers to ski in Open or Masters. I actually think this is a good idea and I hope it gets implemented.

I agree that practice was an issue at the regionals. However, I also know that the people at Broadside worked their asses off at the tournament. Since it stays light so late, I think it was difficult to get volunteers to help to run practice from 6 PM to 10 PM at night after they already worked from 6 AM to 6 PM. So, I wouldn't be too hard on the Broadside people for how practice was run. I think with a couple tweeks (that I already know they're talking about) it will run well for nationals. Further, as mentioned previously, there will be an extra lake at nationals that will only be used for practice. I think that will be huge for taking the load off of the two tournament lakes and spreading out practice. I also noticed that you can buy practice tickets online when you register for nationals. For regionals, I for one did not want to wait in that line at 11 AM for an hour just for a chance at getting on the practice list for that evening on one of the two tournament lakes. Instead, I decided to go over to Gilbert's lake. The drive was only about 10 or 15 minutes and the site was really nice. I went over there two different days to get my son a ride one day and I took a ride another day. Both times I only waited for about an hour and there weren't that many people there. So, I'd recommend considering heading to that lake if practice becomes an issue at Nationals. I do think it's nice to have a practice ride or two while you're at the nationals. That is especially true if you have to show up a few days early for your kids to ski and want to make sure you're not too rusty when it's your turn to ski. I think Broadside will get this all ironed out and we'll all get our practice rides in for nationals. If regionals was any indication, I think it will be a great nationals tournament.

The Arcs had the Goode surrounded in MM Slalom, but couldn't quite get that guy off of the top spot.

I skied on an H2 all last year and I just started skiing on an ARC-S. They're both good skis and I think it will come down to your skiing style/preferences in order to decide which one would be best. The H2 definitely rides higher in the water and is a faster ski than the ARC-S. When I was "on", I really liked my H2 and I had some great scores (for me) on that ski last year. When I was skiing well, I seemed to ski the course at a more constant speed and had less load on the line in general. I have also seen a bunch of my friends ski to personal bests on the H2. However, two bad habits I have are to rock back at the end of the turn and to pull a bit long (especially at the gates). When I started skiing bad and these bad habits crept into my skiing, it didn't mix too well with the H2. I ended up with a ton of speed coming into the turn and the tip coming up at the end of the turn. The ARC-S rides deeper in the water and is a bit slower than my H2. So far I feel like I'm skiing smoother on the ARC-S and the tip is staying down in the turn better even when I rock back a bit. My wife even noticed from the dock that "my spray seems more consistent". I think that means that the ski is consistently staying down through the turn. At first I was skiing a bit narrower on the ARC-S, but after a few sets and some fin tweeking, I have all the width I need and I'm skiing really well. For me, I think the ARC-S is going to work better in the long run. One other thing to note is that I'm 155 - 160 lbs and I always struggle to decide between a 65" or a 66" ski. My H2 was a 66" and that may be another factor as to why it felt fast to me. I'm riding a 66" ARC-S and I think the softer ski at a longer length is another reason it might be working well for me. I'd suggest giving both of them a try if you can and deciding from there. If you ski at 34 and don't pull long, the H2 may help to give you added width. If you pull a bit long and/or like a bit more stable ski, the ARC may be the way to go.

There are a number of threads going on in BOS that all relate to the same problem: we need to redo how people are grouped for competition. My solution for this would be to have three age groups (Boys, Men, and Senior Men), three ability groups within the age groups (1, 2, 3), and an open division. So, if your a young boy just starting out, you'd be in the Boys age group, ability group 1. Make that top speed 30 MPH. As the kid gets better he'd move up to ability group 2. Make that speed 34 MPH. Finally you could have ability group 3 go 36 MPH (for boys and men; perhaps not for senior men). If this setup was implemented you could ensure that boys that "aren't ready" to go 36 could stay in ability group 2 and go 34 MPH. I also think this setup would make it more competitive for everybody and be more fun.

I just looked at the seeding report for nationals and it's looking pretty pathetic. There's only 13 M3 slalom skiers, and 15 M4 slalom skiers. I would have thought those would be pretty big divisions. This could be the smallest nationals ever if more people don't sign up.

It seems to me that the problem is that the skiers can put up money and put calls into a review process. It sounds like both Freddy and Nate did this and that's what led to the multiple changes in score. Let's eliminate that rule. That would still allow a video review under the current rules in the case of disagreement by the judges. I would hope that a video review would be a quick process so that the skier isn't sitting in the water for a long time. Perhaps we could write a rule such that there's a time limit on the review process and after that, the call is final. I'm just talking slalom rules here, so let's not bring tricks into this and complicate everything. In slalom there really isn't that much to review for every pass. Further, I like the idea that, as @jody_seal stated, "tie goes to the runner". I like this idea even more for entrance gates. If a judge can't tell, then the skier gets the gates or buoy. As a judge, I never take gates or buoys away unless I can clearly see that the skier did not go through the gates or around a buoy. I know some people won't agree, but I think we should let the skiers ski and not take things away from them that are so close it raises some big long debate on BOS.

@sfriis - I wouldn't worry too much about what the fin was set at coming out of the factory. I don't know how they put the fin in for the skis, but it seems to me that all there skis come out with the same settings. Maybe they have a jig to just put all the fins in there skis at some very general settings that work for most skis. Notice the nice round numbers of 6.900 and 2.500. I'd reset the fin before trying the ski. After skiing on the H2 for a month or so now, I've noticed that it is a very fast ski and turns pretty hard. I've gone to a bit shorter length, more depth, and more wing angle than I was running on my Quest. So, I'd bet that the recommended settings would be a good place to start. Maybe a bit more wing angle depending on the water temp would work. I'm running 8 deg of wing.