2025 Race Talk

Any clue if pro 4x races are streamed anywhere. Not seeing anything.  

Live on youtube currently - 

Can't ask in Val di Sole thread because I don't want spoilers. Did they kill off the Q2 replays? I loved watching Q2 but I assume it was too good to be true.

They were filming XCC instead.

As of now the theory is Q2 was only for DH only or DH/enduro events. If they run XC during the weekend... We are not going to get Q2 just due to outright manpower. Sucks...

I hope we can continue to push the narrative that Q2 is exciting racing filled with drama and worthy of SOME form of recap/highlights, if not a full broadcast.

I was really hoping they'd manage to put in that effort similar to Wyn's Q2 reaction stuff. I mean one lad with an iphone on the hill can get enough footage for a highlights video... But... I dunno where their quality control lies on the kind of footage they use. Despite track walk footage often being phones or gopros.

Havnt watched 4x in a while, that shit is rapid fire!  Crankworks could take a note, I dont need rider bios or how much air Bas is putting in his minion ss tires.  Just show me racing! 

I wonder if the new LCQ format will allow any of the rainy day tactics that saw Matti take Champery back in the day. He pulled over in qualifying so that he could start earlier in the day and miss the rain, and it looks like there might be a strategic advantage this year to starting earlier in the afternoon if the Alpen thunderstorms are predictable enough… What do ya’ll think? Worth the risk of going to Q2 to start early? Or go like hell no matter what the weather looks like?

My opinion is only 10 slots is way too stressful to take that risk. Particularly if you are factoring in mechanical, let alone simply making mistakes and going too slow.

If it was, for some reason, 20 and 20 to make 40... Then it's definitely more viable, still risky, but at least a consideration. But at 20 and then 10, given the caliber of riders we've seen go 11th this year by fractions of a second... No shot any rider takes that gamble this season, regardless of weather.

Also, for what its worth, 10 less riders in finals means finals day doesn't take as long? Somebdoy can correct me if I'm wrong as I think... Females added riders to finals? Not sure. But I'm pretty sure the final day used to be longer overall so, that benefit is a bit more fringe now. We have a higher likelihood of a 'fair' race under the new format.

At most I could see riders treating Q1 like a proper practice run, at pace, but taking less risks if they know like their timed training is already below P20. That I can see. So get a pace run in, stay off the ground, let the top 20 qualify... And then give it 100% in Q2 where the 10th place spot is, potentially, slower than the 20th spot of Q1.

Although... I believe in many cases we have seen 20th q1 slower than 10th q2. So again... Bad gamble to take, outside of knowing that you are struggling and need another practice run (which I believe it has been noted practice times are shorter for now, forget who said that... it may have been Sven)

It does seem like a very risky dice roll. Like one of those dodecahedral Dungeons and Dragons dice…

Times are too tight to gamble on that. Multiple riders in q2 are previous race winners so your margin for error would be minuscule 

If your job is to make the finals, and you only get 2 chances, you better take 2 good swings.

Women
Q1 - P1 4:15.135, P10 4:25.395, within 10.260 seconds of winner to qualify
Q2 - P1 4:22.017, P5 4:26.702, within 4.685 seconds

Only 1 rider who qualified in Q2 had a time that would not have qualified in Q1.

Men
Q1 - P1 3:42.221, P20 3:48.005, within 5.784 seconds
Q2 - P1 3:42.995, P10 3:47.592, within 4.597 seconds

Zero riders who qualified in Q2 had a time that would not have qualified in Q1.

Matti wouldn’t have even qualified.  Times are way tighter less people qualify, no way you can f around.  

I’M QUITE SURE MATTI WOULD HAVE- oh wait I understand what you mean. 

Thanks for the insight and the data! I don’t think my thoughts were completely crazy, but you guys are totally right; too risky. Goes to show why I come back here to the Vital forums: thoughtful, friendly discourse. 

I actually like the Q1 + Q2 format now. It seems that it raised the level because now everybody gets his chance to enter finals. They are all fast ass hell. In the same time it becomes more like DH skiing, everyone is spectecular and so it is just a nuance of skill and mental game that decides between win and hospital. I am not sure it will benefit the sport. 

What I do not like is that WB abolished the free brodcast of the finals. So I only look the the highlights. I am only one person but if more people do like I do then this will become a marketing desaster by the end of the year. One loses interest fast. And I follow everthing since 1992. I feel like the sport did disconnect with its core audiance by trying to improve. I hope they can find a solution to make broadcasts free again. There is no way I will ad another subscription to all of my subscriptions just for DH. I allready pay taxes for Eurosport by they mostly chose orhers sports on regular TV over DH. It's just a bad marketing move for the great sport that DH is.

Another bad move is that - even for such an young sport - it forgets about the past fast because the core audiance is and will allways be young. The kids have other concerns and heros we had in the 90s. And most of them are barely 50, dead or forgotten. Who talks about p.ex. Nico, Myles Rockwell oder Missy Giove a lot? They do not apear as guest on shows, no padock parade with the old champs. It's constantly reinventing itself before foegetting about itself. Franck Roman, Stefano Migliorini, John Tomac, Jürgen Beneke, the list is long...

Cross posting from VDS thread:

Sven uncorked a pretty devastating rumor on Neethling's VDS recap podcast about Juniors

https://youtu.be/BbAp8pr5cls?feature=shared&t=1532

Funny because Neethling has said to kill the juniors at world cups before.

i believe matti was a protected rider that race, so he didn't have to worry about missing finals. 

and yes he did admit that he pulled over for ~20 seconds to strategically finish lower and have an earlier start time.

They discussed this bunch on Downtime pre- and post-race shows (as well as potential benefits from another timed run) and concluded that it wasn't worth the extra risk and stress. IIRC Kilmurray said he'd heard thaf from multiple racers too.

nope, protected status was something introduced during the RB era

Needle's argument of "Well pro surfing and golf don't put Junior categories along with the Elites" just doesn't hold an validity to me. DH is unique and it's own exciting event so just stop with the comparisons. F1 is hardly the ideal form of motorsport; corruption (MBS), insane cost, green washing, ruthless team politics, etc.. Hardly a good example to aspire to for such a niche sport propped up by a few independent media and the Youtube feeds of the riders themselves. I get trying to increase exposure, but gutting the sport to get to 1hr broadcast package for corporate is unacceptable. 

Plus there's always caveats comparing a given rider's potential to the elites and running on the same track on the same day directly shows that. 

The broadcast should fit the sport, not the other way around. But what do I know about digging myself into a $12.7B broadcasting defect anyway...

Idolizing F1 is a sure-fire way to make sure the "epitome of DH" doesn't actually have the best riders in the world

Formula one has f2 on the same track on the same weekend.  If they were to introduce a development or lites class to replace juniors and the completely unorganized continental series nonsense I would be all for it.  The asas, Alran’s, Erice’s of the world will still get their opportunity to shine on the world stage and it will make way more sense than what they got going on now for everyone who isn’t a consistent top 20-30 rider.  But if juniors is cut with nothing to replace it then it’s the worst idea yet from the group of bad ideas.

I'd like to know more about the history of juniors, because I know at one time they were basically included in the elite race, to some extent. And that held a different meaning, I think to such an extent they could podium or win the race as an elite. And there was just an indicator by the name

Especially as we approach this era where juniors are more commonly 'on elite time' or even setting the fastest lap of the entire weekend... I could see altering how the junior 'CATEGORY' works... But not removing junior age riders from the world cup broadcasts.

Again, calling it development category or something similar, could be useful for marketing... But then how do you handle podiums? Can a dev rider stand on the elite podium?

Also, if we wanna do the comparison thing. Obviously. Moto has 250 and 450 riders. Same broadcast. I think motoGP has something similar, same as F1 and F2... So there's almost no precedent for getting rid of a lower, separate category arguably. I could see just re-branding it. To some extent I think 'juniors' is limited in scope. In terms of age/eligibility. If it was a lower tier, in general, you could have young riders who are above junior age but struggling in elite stay in the category. Or you could even include 15 year old phenoms or whatever.

Especially with the change to 30 elites in final. That is a tough transition for the juniors who are fast but not top 30 fast. To be at least close to on pace and never see a final show.

edit: also, some clarity, we know in moto there are rules about winning certain things in 250 that FORCE you to switch to 450. its very lenient but a similar ideology could be applied here. like winning 2 'dev' overalls forces a switch to elite... so you cant sandbag dev cat or whatever. not like theres any money to even benefit frmo sandbagging in DH

3000YearsAgo.jpg

XC doesn’t have juniors at the world cups, they have u23, same day same track different time. 
XC has a large field for all categories, the tracks won’t get as chewed up as a DH over the weekend but same logistics and time management. 
Troy was one of the last in their era of juniors in the elite races if I remember correctly. 
 

Yeah that would suck. I don't really buy and of Needles arguments either - it would be purely a cost cutting measure and that money wouldn't get funnelled back in to the elite riders at all! The golf example wasn't great either - they have feeder series where players can qualify for a tour card, but they still get press and those players are then guaranteed entry to tour events. DH doesn't have proper feeder series where junior riders can develop and be noticed, and teams aren't going to be able to pump money in to Juniors that they hope will make the big leagues and pay off in a few years....