The secret of ski racing

In recent years and particularly this season, alpine technical events have become the confluence of lightness, speed and concentration, best evidenced by athletes like Mikaela Shiffrin and Marcel Hirscher.

Lightness, because the winning skiers must glide as much as possible and not “hurt” the snow by edging to hard of swinging their weight too much from the neutral position.

Speed, because of course, going faster is the mean to the end of victory.

Finally, concentration is key. It must be present moments before the start, to chase any bit of fear or apprehension, and stay on through the finish line without any little, tiny gap at all.

Just one lapse and victory may be over. This means, in GS or Slalom, around a full minute of pure, uninterrupted concentration on average.

Much, much harder to keep up than most of us would think, but by far the paramount ingredient in great skiing and at the same time the open secret of skiing success!