The downhill/Alpine and cross-country/Nordic split
Phil
Did ski lifts create the split between downhill and cross-country?
The name for cross-country
skiing in French is ski du fond. Which, loosely translated, means
valley skiing (literally fond = bottom, so it's like saying “skiing
of the lowlands” and if you take skiing, by itself, to mean the
alpine variant then that's what takes place up high, on the
mountain).
I lay the primary split
between the two disciplines at the feet of Mathias Zdarsky, back in
1896. You'll remember him if you followed the history threads last
year. Called the “Father of Alpine Skiing,” the split was mostly
due to the difference in terrain between his home in Austria and
skiing's home of Norway. The terrain in Norway was such that skiers
there never stressed the necessity to vary their primary technique
from “straight running” which, if you think about it, is still
the main way of getting along on Nordic skis, to this day.
Straight running was not
going to be survivable in steep Alpine couloirs and Zdarsky wanted
something he could use in them. Lacking instruction on how to do so,
he taught himself a method for it and, because others wanted to also
do it, the idea caught on.
He created a system for
teaching it. Others copied and modified that system. One of them was
Hannes Schneider, and, as has been stated before, Schneider's Arlberg
Technique was the majority method for ski instruction in the U.S.
during the time that skiing was transitioning from being largely
self-propelled to being lift-propelled.
No one missed the graceful
Telemark turn because the Arlberg canon had eliminated it and its
mainstay, the Stem Christie, worked very well on the slopes that the
lifts were serving. Skiing in the U.S. became “downhill” skiing
while cross-country was relegated to a niche activity (done in the
lowlands) that was encouraged largely because of its historical
value. Jumping was dramatic and remained a popular spectator sport,
but spectating at a cross-country race was as exciting as watching
cement set.
That part of the Nordic
discipline went into hibernation until roused from its slumber in the
1960s.
Phil
An interesting anecdote about a challenge between a Telemarker and an Alberger. (from the NESM's Nordic Timeline)
1944: “On a hot fall day, up
on Mt. Mansfield, a Norwegian and an Austrian challenged each other
to a unique race. The Austrian was Sepp
Ruschp... the operator of the Mt. Mansfield Ski Area. The
Norwegian was Erling
Strom, operator of one of the first ski schools in America and a
noted ski mountaineer. Ruschp, Strom and a group of other men, all
considered too old for combat duty in the waning days of World War
II, were mowing the brambles and brush on the Nosedive, one of
Mansfield’s tougher ski trails.
They were preparing it for another
season, and Ruschp wanted to finish the job that afternoon. They had
already cut the highest part of the slope, where the brush was
lowest. Sepp Ruschp was about 36, Erling Strom was in his 40s.
…The course they decided upon, one
Strom had apparently already considered as a good race route, was
designed to combine both alpine and cross-country racing: the
mountain’s four-mile toll road, which winds from near the summit to
the foot of the slope, and the valley’s hills and dales; total
distance—about 11 miles.
They named it the Stowe Derby, after the Parsenn Derby in Davos Switzerland, one of the oldest and most famous long downhill races.”
Ron Gonzalez
Phil
The friendly argument that provoked the Stowe Derby is one that I am familiar with having had the same type of dialogue with the Alpine ski team coach at our school, when I was the Nordic coach. He was less interested in testing the theory than I was, but if we had been able to find a mutually agreeable formula to put it to the test I think we might have tried it.
I said we should hold a race over two
different courses, downhill GS and then XC for 5K. Problem was how to
measure the results. Combined time would certainly favor the Nordic
skiers, since time penalties for poor technique on a sub 2 min.
downhill course are probably not going to add up to the same deficits
the inexperienced downhill skiers would have racked up against the
XC skiers over 5K. There was also the problem of equipment. Would we just
trade skis, etc.? The idea was even floated that everyone would stay
on their own equipment. Nordic skiers could probably have managed the
downhill course, even if they fell at every gate, but the Alpine
skiers would have taken a week to cover 5K on their equipment. Could
never figure out those details so it never got tested.
Phil
The Stowe Derby course was well-designed for the kind of test that Strom wanted. The modern course is described on the website as requiring: “...participants to ski approximately 20 km of challenging terrain, racing down Mt. Mansfield’s Toll Road and along the Stowe Rec Path before reaching the finish in Stowe Village. The Course has a total vertical drop of almost 2,700 feet. The winners will complete the course in about 43 minutes, while recreational skiers can take a couple of hours.”
If you look at the profile I created
from Plot-a-Route you can see how inefficient it would be to try it
on 2022's Alpine gear vs. 1944's. The top image shows the overall
profile. The lower image shows the % grades. Even during the downhill
segment there is a level stretch and a brief uphill. The remainder
of the course along the Rec Path is rolling, slightly downhill, but
largely level. From the pictures it seems that standard skate-racing
equipment is what the winners are using. It might be worth asking one
of our ski mo authorities if anyone tries it on that kind of
equipment with any success.
The separation between the two types of equipment was not significant enough in the mid-40s to give Strom the advantage. Here also from the Derby website: “At the time, Ruschp believed that his Alpine skis were the fastest tools for the job, whereas Strom argued Nordic skis would be the better choice. After much debate, the two decided to race. Sepp Ruschp, on Alpine gear, was the winner of the first two Stowe Derbies.”
Jonathan S. Shefftz
Phil
Phil
