January 27, 2008 (Canmore, Alberta) – SkiTrax columnist Marty Hall has been following all of the action at the Alberta World Cup at Canmore. Here are his comments on the final Day 4 of the competition and some general observations on the whole event.

Note – I use NA (North American) a lot as there are parallels between these two programs and I coached both programs for a total of 21 years, so, I feel I can draw conclusions or make statements that work for both. Lots to write about!

Chandra – WOW! She dusted off the 2006 Torino Olympic strategy and put a good old ass-kicking on those other girls. Out of the start, get the lead and get through that hard, right hand turn nice and clean, flop back into 2nd place for the hills – go through “Cut-off Corner” in 2nd place and in single file, so again no problems, power into her tuck and then go for the throat when she sling shots herself into her free skate and leaves everyone in her dust. It worked again yesterday!!! I said it after Torino – she is the best free skater in the world and could you believe how big she looked when she went into her 2 skate/V2A. Yes, the announcer missed it again as he did in Torino. Chandra won in a landslide – five meters in a sprint is unbelievable! Don’t even think that the 2nd and 3rd place ladies are slacking off as they are now racing for the difference between CDN/US $ of 14,000 to CDN/US $7,000 – that’ll help you keep the pedal to the metal!

Sara Renner – This week was definitely a confirmation that she now can get her focus set towards 2010 in Vancouver – two solid distance results – qualified for both sprints and represents herself well in both – World Cup points in four races. Are you drooling when you think of a Sara and Chandra duo in the Team Sprints? If I was any talented younger women skier in Canada with aspirations of making the 2010 team I would be moving to Canmore, so I could train for the next two years with these two ladies.

More On Chandra – She had a break through in the classic sprint – first she qualified which has been dicey in the past and then to end up 12th in the “B” final. I think she is getting on top of her technique as she has always claimed it was weakness. If I’m Dave Wood, the Canadian Coach, I’m headed to the Callaghan Valley, Olympic venue for 2010, this spring to check out the sprint course to make sure there is a downhill finish like Torino and Canmore – lets give Chandra that edge again.

Emotional Racer of The Week – has to be Garrot Kuzzy of the US Team, “DFL” in the pursuit, and no one wants that title in any race, to 34th in the 15km skate, to a 9th place finish in the skate sprint yesterday! You could have made a ton of money betting on Garrot yesterday. What a week of lows and highs – I’m sure he thought he was airborne long before he got to the airport. Way to go Garrot – you used your week well.

Best Tactics Award – goes to Drew Goldsack (not Phil Widmer as originally posted) by far, as Bjorn Lind hip checked him on the 2nd hill to the back of the pack and I can tell you that pissed Drew off and he went and got Lind back on “Cut-off Corner”, as he took an inside line and cut Lind off and pushed him too the back of the pack and out of the race. I thought Drew was going to duke it out watching him in the finish area. Haven’t seen many NAs do this in my years in skiing.

Worst Tactics Award – goes to Andy Newell of the US Team. Andy has been one of the top three sprint qualifiers these past few years only to get creamed in the heats. My question is, how can you be the #2 qualifier and not make it out of the quarter finals. Asleep at the switch – that’s what it looked like to me. Andy was definitely in the wrong place on the 2nd hill and the corner as he continually let people by on his inside and was boxed all the way to the finish line. It amazed me how many times yesterday that lead skiers were on the left side of the uphill just before the corner and would get passed on the inside – you had to be to the right.

Classic Sprint Course – Give me a bulldozer or a backhoe (preferred) for 3-4 days and I can fix those hills and “Cut-off Corner” real quick. To be able to double pole that course on skate skis, no kick wax, in pretty cold snow conditions only means it’ll be done more in the future under faster conditions. That is not a classic sprint course!!

FIS Sprint Rules – Definitely there needs to be a 6-lane finish to make sprints more fair. If you’re letting six skiers into the heats then there should be six lanes to the finish – way to many skiers were boxed out of their right to a full sprint to the finish. That’s not ok.

As I watched all the heats yesterday and relied on the CBC commentator but it was unclear. I don’t like the way they FIS manipulates going from the semi-finals in the A and B final heats. I thought the top three skiers from each of the semi-final heats went to the A final and the last three went to the B final – but one of the 3rd place finishers went to the B final because he was slower then the 4th place finisher in the other semi-final. That’s like changing the rules as the game goes along and also, a heat is a heat when it comes to who’s skiing what strategy and tactics. I’m not sure I heard that right – need to research this more.

Mentioning the CBC commentator – forget all the Euro pronounciations as we’re in North America.

George Gray – I saw one press release today saying George had a great result, referring to his 25th place on Saturday in the skate race. I’d say that’s not a good race, but a great race, in that he has now had two true international efforts in a row. George has had a tough couple of years trying to get his body to support his training efforts and I’m sure it has been extremely hard mentally to wonder if days like this were ever going to happen. Way to hang in there George!

Crowd and Kudos – Huge crowd yesterday and they got what they were looking for, a win from their local lady, some great racing, and a super Saturday of weather beyond belief – what a week for racing. To the organizers – KUDOS – nothing but good things heard all around for the way the events were hosted and run.