Olympic combined champion Ted Ligety reports regularly from the World Cup tour in collaboration with Denver Post ski writer John Meyer.
VAL D’ISERE, FRANCE — I was disqualified in the super-combined event at the world championships Monday for a technical violation of the equipment rules.
It was one of those “Stuff Happens” things. The height of my boot above the ski measured a tenth of a millimeter higher than the rules allow. That’s a miniscule margin, probably less than the thickness of a piece of paper.
They measure from the base of your ski to where the heel of your boot touches the binding. I’ve been skiing on that same pair of skis and bindings all year long without any violations. We just think some snow got in the binding and threw off the measurement just enough for it to measure illegal.
The boot is not allowed to be more than 50 millimeters higher than the base of the ski. Every person on the tour takes that rule to the absolute limit, because every millimeter counts as far as creating angles and leverage on your skis.
But the little heel piece where the binding brakes click up can get snow inside there. It can freeze, so the binding isn’t fully tight when it is engaged.
It’s a case of woulda-coulda-shoulda, but the DQ might have cost me a medal. I won my Olympic gold medal in combined, and without the disqualification Monday I would have been 17th in the downhill, going into the slalom portion of the combined with an advantage of .7 of a second over the Frenchman who ultimately won the silver medal, Julien Lizeroux.
The good news is that my best chances for a medal are yet to come, in Friday’s giant slalom and Sunday’s slalom. I’m second in the World Cup GS standings and I’ve been feeling good about my slalom lately.
We’re going to Veysonnaz, Switzerland, for two days of GS training with the Swiss guys, who will present some of my toughest competition Friday. It’s good to train with really fast guys, and it will be a good opportunity to get in their head a little bit.
John Meyer: 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com
