Here is a quick recap of this trip. One of the main reasons we decided to take part in the SGP was to meet with officials concerning the changes that Nordic Combined is going through as we speak. Originally we were going to having a jumping camp in Courchevel and ride and watch a couple stages of the Tour de France in the Alps. However, after the FIS meetings in May and the abrupt changes in NC we decided to take part in the SGP to check out the competition and to discuss the future of NC.
A synopsis of the main changes include a new World Cup and Continental Cup system which does away with the WCA and WCB systems. Nordic Combined will have a system much like ski jumping between the WC and COC.
The format for WC and COC in NC will be 1 jump and a 10km race every Saturday and Sunday from the end of November to the middle of March for a total of 26 World Cup competitions and 4 World Ski Championship competitions. There is a proposal to cut the field to 40 after the jumping either in a qualification the day before on after the actual competition.
There is still a lot of discussion about the point table but we don't know if anything will be changed. It depends on who you talk to about it.
As we test our new formats and rules it is becoming clear that some things that we are testing may come in handy, especially in light of all the cancellations we had last winter. One new change we are testing is that on the day before the competition we will have one or two training jumps while the third the jump is a "pocket comp" or a "deposit" on the weekend. Therefore, as long as we have a competition jump the day before we can use that one jump for the weekend. There has also been discussion of using this comp the day before as a qualification jump as well for the weekend. Not only did we test this qauli version in Einsiedeln we also used the quali jump the day before for the competition jump on Friday.
Confused? There are other changes being tossed around, if you have questions give us a call.
A quick update from Einsiedeln.
Bill jumped to 9th place in the quali jump, Johnny was 32nd, Alex and Eric didn't qualify in the top 40 so they couldn't race. Since a serious lightning storm came to Einsiedeln shortly after the trial jump we were forced to use the results from Thursday to start the race on Friday. The inline race again took place in a driving rain storm. Bill worked his way up to the lead group after 2 laps. He tried to breakaway from the lead twice on laps 6 and 7 but couldn't get away. On the last lap the lead group climbed the last hill very quickly and the hometown boy Ronny Heer was the victor. Bill held onto 5th. Johnny also had a good race and moved up to 21st. He finished in the middle of a big pack that went up to 17th place.
No Excuses
einsiedeln_ergebnis.pdf (104.04 kb)