Olympic downhill courses

I am a bit familiar with the Whistler men's downhill course. I have skied it some time ago and found it then to be a nice cruiser and fairly similar to the Lake Louise downhill. I've also watched helmet-mounted cams previews of the course which confirmed these early impressions. I also realize that in order to let all nationalities on the run, it can't and shouldn't be a course like the Streif in Kitzbuehel. This said, the 2002 Snowbasin and the 1992 Bellevarde's runs were far superior to Whistler's and were of another caliber altogether. On runs like these, the narrow time windows in which the winners were tightly grouped would have stretched significantly and the added technical difficulties might have brought a few unintended consequences like what happened yesterday in the women downhill.

In contrast to the men's, the latter did separate the little girls from the fearless and capable women in a big way, with its ice, its surface “waves” and its relentlessness. This goes to show that all DH courses are not created equal and that weather and conditions can magnify the actual difficulties be a factor of 2 to 3...