Posts Tagged ‘Austria’

As can be seen in the video above from badreichenhall the action was fast, furious and dangerous at the World Cup downhill recently held at Leogang in Austria. The main reason being the weather which made conditions very difficult – it was cold and it rained and as the various heats came and went the tracks became treacherous.

In the final of the men’s downhill, under worsening weather conditions, no one could match the top qualifying times, but Minnaar managed to complete his run seven-tenths of a second faster than Atherton, with Gwin taking third and Blenkinsop fourth.  Minnaar, with two wins and a third place, extended his lead over Atherton to 73 points, while Gwin moved into third, 250 points behind Minnaar.

“It was crazy out there,” commented Minnaar.  “I was just all over the place, trying to stay on the bike.  It really was tough.”

In the final of the women’s downhill it was Jonnier who came home first, nearly half a second faster than Atherton’s qualifying time. Atherton was the last rider to race, and the only one who could possibly beat the French rider, but the 2008 World Cup winner crashed on her run and did not finish.  Ragot took second and Tracy Moseley (Trek World Team) third.  Jonnier now holds a significant 140 point lead over Floriane Pugin (Scott 11), with Atherton third, 190 points behind.

But it was not only downhill action for Leogang also hosted the 4th round of the 4 cross series – and it was Jared Graves (Yeti Fox Shox) who took his third win of the season to extend his lead in the men’s series, while defending 2009 women’s champion Anneke Beerten (Suspension Center) finally won her first World Cup race of the year.

The win put Beerten into the series lead, ten points ahead of the absent Horáková, with Molcik a further ten points back in third.

Graves’ third win now puts him 175 points ahead of Slavik, with Wichman 190 points back.  These two riders have a slim mathematical chance of catching Graves for the World Cup title, but the odds are that Graves has already wrapped up the 2010 title.

Check out the action in the men’s final from SouLCr3aTioNv2 – can anyone catch Graves – we don’t think so! Well you have to win on your home patch.

The next round of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup will take place in Champéry (SUI) on July 24th and 25th 2010.

As we mentioned above conditions were tough – see below how difficult it was and how Matti Lehikoinen crashed out in the downhill – now that is extreme! The video comes from dirtclowns

We are often asked what is the difference between downhill mountain biking and freeride mountain biking and with the start of the Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour this coming weekend, April 10th in Vienna, Austria we thought some explanation would be appreciated.

Due to similarities with the bicycles used and often the riding locations, the divisions between downhill riding and freeriding are often overlooked. But first let us quickly examine the differences between the disciplines. First the bikes – freeride has steeper head tube angles and shorter wheelbases for low-speed stability on technical stunts, while downhill bikes have slacker headtube angles and longer wheelbases for absolute high-speed stability at the cost of low-speed maneuverability.

Downhill riding is primarily concerned with descending a slope on a given course as quickly as possible. There are often many obstacles in downhill riding, including jumps, drops, and rocky sections.

Freeride is, by definition, a much broader realm of riding.For example, a freerider may often ride a very narrow wooden plank raised as many as twenty five feet above the ground, drop off of cliffs, raised platforms, or other man-made or natural objects onto a landing, or “transition” up to forty feet below. This may involve jumping over a structure below, such as a road or highway.

Many aspects of freeriding are similar to downhill riding, with wide open speed sections,  technical and very steep elements to the course and dirt jumping with a series of man-made jumps and landings. Another key difference is the emphasis on performing tricks or stylish riding stances while airborne. A freeride course provides ample opportunities for the rider to become airborne, throw tricks, and create new and imaginative lines on and over the terrain.

Above is a typical freeride bike – the Rocky Mountain RMX R2 freeride bike

As you can see in the video below from ToEjaMxD the guys involved in freeriding get up to some seriously extreme challenges – this is a seriously extreme sport and not for the faint hearted.

In the past six months the pro athletes, organizers and leaders from the sport have been making their contribution to the formation of the Freeride Mountain Bike (FMB) World Tour – which will start this weekend in Vienna.

The aim of the tour is to reach a professional standard and raise the event to a more consistent and safer level. Throughout the years Freeride Mountain Bike has become a dynamic sport with many skilled contestants competing in different categories. By making this next step it will be considered as an elite sport.

The Vienna Air King launches the brand new Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour as its kick off event and welcomes almost 60 riders from 14 nations, including not only European countries, but also the United States, Canada and New Zealand.

The competitors of the Vienna Air King have to show some hard rocking tricks and combinations on the course to secure themselves a part of the cash and goods prizes – a total of 10,000 euros is up for grabs so it is not so surprising that the event has attracted so many well known names including Martin Soderstrom of Sweden, last years winner, Alyokhin Pavel, Sam Pilgrim, Jan Toth, Amir Kabbani and Jamie Goldman.

There are two pre-qualification runs on Friday, April 9^th. The ten best riders of the pre-qualifications make their way to the next round on Saturday, April 10th. These ten riders compete together with 20 invited pros from all over the world and have two runs each, to show their best tricks. The 15 riders with the highest scores will make their way in to the finals.

The course features a starting tower with a drop to secure the speed for three massive dirt jumps and a quarterpipe at the very end. The riders show spectacular tricks like backflips, tailwhips, flipwhips and many more. They will be judged on the difficulty of the tricks, execution of those tricks and their overall impression.

As you can see in the video from redbull it is not only the freeriding which attracts the attention. Last year there were more than 100,000 visitors and it is likely to be the same again this year. The event also features many stalls for mountain biking kit and on the Saturday afternoon there will be a best tricks competition. If you are in Vienna at the weekend this is a must attend event.

We are delighted by the formation of the Freeride Mountain Bike Tour and will enjoy bringing you our readers news of this extreme sport.

It started at the Winter X games in 1998 but has been introduced as a medal event for the first time at Whistler – hot on the heels of snowboard cross which made its debut at Turin four years ago. But why is this newcomer generating so much attention

Ski Cross, or Ski X as it is often written, is a race on skis between four skiers on a man made course which includes twists, turns and spectacular jumps. The race lasts about a minute and then its all over. But the frequency of crashes draws attention – it is good TV viewing with non stop action.

The video below from WorldSportTV explains what it is all about and features the French champion Ophelie David who will be competing at Whistler, Karin Huttary, a former X Games champion from Austria and Enak Gavaggio of France.

A Ski Cross Course needs to meet requirements specified by the FIS (Fédération Internationale de Ski) rules. There are men’s and women’s events and both use the same course. Athletes will have to race the course many times during the event.

The course is constructed of obstacles such as traverses, flats, rolls, banks, moguls, and jumps of various heights and difficulties, all connected with turns.

• Length: 800 to 1200 m
• Vertical Drop: 150 to 250 m
• Turns: 50% of the course must be turns of varying size and speeds between the other obstacles.
• Features: 25% of the course must be traverses, moguls, banks etc.
• Jumps: 25% of the course will be jumps 1 to 4 m high.

The excitement is immediate as all four racers start at the same time with racers spending as much as 25% of the race airborne whilst travelling at speeds of up to 65 mph and all the time there is the threat of a wipe out which can be your own fault or you may be taken out by your fellow racers.

After a timed qualification round the qualifiers race in knock out heats head to head with the first and second proceeding to the next round. When there are just 8 racers left there is what is termed ‘the small final’ to determine positions 5 to 8 inclusive and there is the ‘big final’ which determines positions 1 to 4 and therefore, in the case of the Olympics, the gold, silver and bronze medals.

Competitors are not allowed to push or trip or commit any foul play and can be disqualified from the competition if this happens.

The men’s final was held on Sunday and the winner was Switzerland’s Michael Schmid ahead of Andreas Matt of Austria who captured silver and Audun Grønvold of Norway won the bronze medal.

The ladies take to the hill today so do not miss any of the action, one of the favourites will be Ophelie David. Here she is winning the world championship held in Madonna di Campiglio in Italy in 2007. Thanks to sportsnetwork for the video and good luck Ophelie!

Don’t miss the action later today.

Yesterday we talked about the skeleton event at the forthcoming Winter Olympics to be held in Whistler, Vancouver, Canada and today we turn our attention to an extreme sport that is closely related to skeleton – the luge.

In luge – the French word for “sled” – racers begin by sitting on open fibreglass sleds. Pulling on fixed handles in the ice, they burst out of the start. After this explosive start, they use spiked gloves on the ice surface for extra acceleration before lying down on their backs, feet stretched out in front of them, heads back to be as aerodynamic as possible. Luge racers steer using their legs and shoulders, and brake by sitting up, putting their feet down and pulling up on the sled runners.

Therefore the fundamental difference between skeleton and luge is that the skeleton pilots go down the track head first lying on their stomachs whereas the luge pilots are feet first lying on their back. Which is crazier we are not sure – but a similarity would appear to be that you can see very little be it luge or skeleton.

Luge races have grown considerably faster with refrigerated luge tracks and aerodynamic equipment, so that speeds now regularly reach 140 kilometres an hour or more and G-forces reach over 5G.

The singles events consist of four heats over two days. The individual with the lowest combined time over the four runs wins. Men and women compete on the same track, but the women and doubles begin further down the course. The four-run format is unique to the Olympic Winter Games and designed to reward consistency, endurance and ability to withstand pressure – particularly on the second day.

The doubles event consists of two runs over one day, with the fastest total time determining the winner. All events in luge are timed to the thousandth of a second.

Two athletes — Peter Minsch of Switzerland and George Robertson of Australia — who in February 1883 instigated what was called “The Great International Sled Race”. Their time: 9 minutes and 15 seconds, to slide down a four kilometre track joining the Swiss villages of Klosters and Davos was nothing very special but that didn’t matter – it was the idea that mattered.  But it was not until 1964 that luge for men, women and doubles made its Olympic debut at the Games in Innsbruck.

The action kicks off right at the beginning of the games with the men’s singles competition being held over the 13th and 14th Feb. Then it is the turn of the girls who race over the 15th and 16th of Feb – and finally the doubles who compete on Feb 17th.

The favourites for medals in the luge are the Germans who have dominated the event for the last 10 years and in all probability they have a very good chance of winning again. But strong competition usually comes from Austria, Italy, Russia and the USA but with home advantage see what the 2010 Olympics Luge Coach Wolfgang Staudinger says about the Luge Canada team’s chances at the Vancouver 2010 Games. Thanks RayVanEng for the video.

We have been away for a few days, to the beautiful island of Majorca and had to come back via Zurich where it was snowing. This morning, a beautiful clear day in Provence, we could see the southern Alps covered with snow. The radio told us that resorts like Isola 2000 and Auron had a 40cms of snow at the station and 80 cms at the top. Winter has arrived and many of these resorts will be opening the second week of December.

2010 is of course the year of the Winter Olympics which start in February in Vancouver, Canada. Many extreme sports are practised during the games – snowboarding in its various guises, skiing…..where do we stop, but we suggest that ski jumping must rank as one of the most extreme.

Men’s ski jumping has been part of the Olympic Winter Games since the first Games in Chamonix, in 1924. The large hill competition was added for the Innsbruck 1964 Winter Games.

Above – Todd Loddwick of the United States – photo courtesy AP Photo/Matthias Rietschiel

There are now three medal events at the Olympics – the normal hill individual, the large hill individual and a team event. The format for the individual events is the same: there are 50 starters being the world’s top 15 ranked ski jumpers and 35 who will have qualified at the games. The first round whittles this number down to 35 jumpers who then jump again in reverse starting order to the distance jumped in the first round.

Competitors are evaluated on distance and style and while there is a very close relationship between the two, the skier with the longest jump will often have the highest style points. An exception to this can be found in the landing portion of the jump as long jumps can make landing in a controlled telemark position more difficult. The quality of landing can be a determining factor in deciding the finishing place when the distances are similar.

The team event is comprised of four athletes and there are two rounds of competition. In the first round, one skier from each team jumps. Then, the second skier from each team jumps. Then the third, followed by the fourth.

In the second round, only the top eight teams from the first round compete. Similar to the individual events, the less proficient jumpers go first and the best jumpers go last. The team with the highest total score over all eight jumps wins.

Norway heads the list of all time medal winners at the Winter Olympics, holding a total of 280 medals including 98 golds and in Vancouver it will be Anders Jacobsen who will be trying to take that total of golds to 100.

In the video below from Silosaft you can watch Jocobsen win at Innsbruck in 2007, narrowly beating Thomas Morgenstern of Austria.

Good luck to all competitors – perhaps this is one extreme sport that you could not practise in Majorca!

Living legend Hermann Maier, one of Alpine skiing’s greatest, yesterday announced his retirement from competitive racing. Maier, who picked up the nickname ‘The Herminator’  won four overall World Cup titles – 1998, 2000, 2001 and 2004, two Olympic gold medals at the Nagano Olympics in 1998,  three World Championship titles – 1999 x 2 and 2005  and a total of 54 races on the World Cup circuit.

His racing career nearly ended following a motorcycle accident in August 2001 when he collided with a car on his way home from a summer training session in Austria. Doctors nearly amputated his lower leg, but instead Maier underwent massive reconstructive surgery. Most believed his racing career was over when he had to sit out the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City, Utah.

His first full season back was 2004 when he reclaimed both the Super-G and overall titles, a feat widely seen as one of the greatest comebacks in sports history. In 2004, Hermann Maier received the Laureus World Sports Award for the “Comeback of the Year” and it was at this time that he picked up his nickname for his indestructible nature.

Hermann Maier in action.

Maier had victories again in the World Cup series in 2005 and 2009 but after surgery  on his right knee in the offseason he has decided to hang up his boots.

“I am healthy now and that’s the way I want to live on,” Maier said, fighting back tears at a news conference. “I wanted to become fit once more and I’ve accomplished that now.”

We are pleased to bring you this video from petrduchac of Maier in action at Kitzbühel in Austria which could be considered his own back yard for it is Maier who holds the best results ever recorded at Kitzbühel from the Super-G races, with 5 victories and 2 seconds in the 7 times that he competed there – an extreme performance in this extreme sport – without precedent – deserving respect.