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Went out of his way to touch his gopro mid-run... Heard the power off beeps... Probably fuming about that and still kept focus to win.
To some extent that story has to be demoralizing to the competition that gave it all they had, hung it out, and had seconds put into them by Jax... WOW
Fast AF provides by far the best insight into the french riders, it always feels like a bunch of friends talking at pub where they just give it all out!
Exactly this. There is so much time to be had if you can let it run and buck through some steep stuff (and survive). Reminded me of Remi Thirion winning in Andorra (way back on the old track), his bottom section was completely untouchable that day. There are just some runs like that.
thanks for digging in! really interesting rule.
I'm ALL for the LCQ. I think it's 100% the way to go. However, there is the issue of seeding Q2 riders into the finals. If they don't figure out a better way to do it, you're going to have potential winners and top runs (like Jordan this week) come down before the cameras are really on. And races will be anti-climactic. I do think they probably need to seed everyone by time, and not put the Q2 guys at the end of the list, just because they went Q2. And I agree, there would have to be some weather clause, etc. UCI/WB will not like the weather clause as it is a lot of grey area. But something needs to be done to try to seed the riders better. Say Jackson gets a flat in Q1. Qualies Q2 and then comes down in say 21st spot, before the cameras are really covering racing. Very anti-climactic.
Potential schedule:
Q1 Women
Q1 Men
Q2 Women (Immediately following conclusion of Men's Q1)
Q2 Men (Immediately following conclusion of Women's Q2)
Then Juniors races. (I think right now the juniors all race before the Q2 sessions. This allows for more time for the course to change and weather to affect.
I disagree on both counts.
One of the biggest complaints last year from riders was the short amount of time between qualifying and semi-finals. The riders need time to rest, and the mechanics need time to get bikes up and running, especially when a crash or mechanical was involved. Having the Juniors run in between qualifying rounds helps with this.
I also think they get it right with the final race order. It has always been the case that fast riders might be early in the order, and that's just racing. Back in the day, the fat guys sometimes played the 'weather game', trying to qualify near the end of the pack to ride before the rain came in. Likewise, a guy could crash in qualies and just drop early. There have been several attempts at getting the fast guys to drop last in the past few years, and none of them went well.
dude there used to be fat guys! We’ve come a long way
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole promise of cutting the field down to 30 riders was to make it so they could show all 30 of those runs in their entirety. It seems like WBD moved the goalposts on that front pretty hard if I'm remembering correctly.
They have.
I also have no issue with it. I think full runs was a mistake from a broadcast point of view. When you watch a f1 race you don’t watch the pov camera of every racer back to back. When you watch supercross, football, basketball (even in person in the stadium) you miss some action live. Now that doesn’t mean you don’t need the cameras for the whole course for highlights, replays, and the last 5 riders. But 2 hrs of guys on the same line at barely a diffirent pace was not a good show.
So then the question is if q2 is an exciting enough show to justify cutting the field in half. I say no. The battle for 40th was way more entertaining than people just trying to qualify. And we are losing people perfectly capable of winning the race on race day from participating.
I also think we are losing eyeballs to the sport in the process. Dh is a niche participation sport. I think a huge part of the dhse and monster pro success is the fact there are a few hundred amateurs on the same course who are bringing their friends and family. The fact their broadcast is relatively short isn’t the key to their success. And while the wcs should not be running amateurs I do think it was much better off when it was more accessible for talented people to try to make a career from it. The more people who are on the broadcast and the more people participating just means more people tuning in. And this sport just is not remotely big enough to be turning those people away at the venues or on the broadcasts.
Right on, that makes a lot of sense, complete runs probably aren't the move but a little less pre-show and more partial runs of the slower qualifiers might not hurt.
I think they could make the 2nd qualifier a way more exciting broadcast by just showing the current racers time vs the current top time and the current 10th position. Or at the very least just show the leader board more after each run and talk about who just kicked out and who put a strong time in. Because I know that stuff generally I can make it exciting for myself, but the broadcast should really capitalize on that.
Q2 is great because we know the context. We know what it means for a new rider to make a final or for a star to miss it. I’m glad they show it.
I also want to watch Q1. I’d watch it with their robo and static cameras. I’d watch a feed of whatever’s on the jumbovismatron at the finish corral. I’d even watch it as presented by RicMc and whatever too-polite-to-say-no ex- or injured racer they can get.
I love it when someone’s on the hot seat for an hour, that’s fantastic! Dafuq you talking?!?!
I am hyped there’s a race this week too.
TB gonna do all three again?
Regarding "And we are losing people perfectly capable of winning the race on race day from participating..." this one is interesting to me. If they are perfectly capable of winning on race day, then they are surely capable of qualifying for one of the 30 spots. A few other people have expressed the same opinion "but we are losing some of the fast guys now..." which seems to imply that the new qualifying format is somehow putting some of the fast guys at a disadvantage? I think there's definitely a generational shift going on, and many of the riders are taking a much more fearless approach to Q1, which has left us without some of the BIG NAMES that we know and love in the finals...but to say that we are losing "fast guys" is exactly the opposite of what is happening in real life. The FAST guys are the ones in the finals, that's literally how qualifying works. If you're not in the finals after taking TWO swings at it, then you didn't go fast enough. Doesn't matter what the name tag says on the jersey.
The UCI & WBD/TNT are trying to change the HISTORY of our sport. Fokk them.
Announced Tahnee's record of podiums and cut it by half.
They're trying to remove the 5 man/woman podium from OUR record books. I'm done.
World Cup racers & teams are cowards if they let it happen.
Throwback to last year VDS https://youtu.be/gsBqtNcxCI4?si=i2VHaHy3L-G9pHME&t=1024 where Tahnee Seagrave provided a great discussion about the protected status!
Five rider podium should have never happened in the first place.
I'd love to know what the 2 UCI guys with clipboards were saying to each other after the Kieffer incident?
"- I'd really like to make a decision on this, I can feel the stares from the fans
-Yeah, me too but Josh is in the commentary booth and we need to check he's not going to put out a video that contradicts us
-Well, I suppose I could always talk to Cathro again?
-Nah, it'll just cause more shit
-I know, I know. By the way, did you hear Ric's comments about the marshal sitting on the tall course marker?
-What?? You mean the deflated timing marker near the RedBull arch, of the same type that we said 2 weeks ago we didn't use to define track limits?
-Yep
-Shiiit, as if we didn't get enough grief over this already. Maybe we need to talk to these guys and see if we can sing off the same song sheet at some point."
b practice loudenville podcast
I though the smaller field and the LCQ was a bad idea but it has made things interesting for sure. Maybe it could have been 40 instead and had same thing. I like that no one is safe and has to be on their game to make sure they make it into finals.
I am curious are the tracks not getting destroyed as much due to smaller fields?
I think being top 60th in the world on Saturday to win on Sunday is a fundamentally diffirent sport from needing a top 20 or a top 10 to participate on Sunday. And tahnee winning vds last year certainly shows how protection isn’t necessarily the worst idea if you want to create the best product come race day. And it’s earned over the course of a previous season and actual race results of the current season. Not going .4 of a second quicker at qualifying. And I don’t want to take away from the people who are going quick at qualifying. But is q2 more entertaining than more finals runs? And if we aren’t going to do full runs than why are we making the show smaller on finals.
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