StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Olympic Alpine Skiing, with Erin Mielzynski and Andrew Weibrecht

Episode Date: February 22, 2018

We’re going downhill, fast. Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice descend into the world of Olympic alpine skiing with Olympic skiers Erin Mielzynski (Team Canada) and Andrew Weibrecht (Team USA), physicist John Eric Goff, and Jake Stevens, the US Race Director at Rossignal.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/olympic-alpine-skiing-with-erin-mielzynski-and-andrew-weibrecht/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly and I'm Chuck Nice. This is Playing With Science. So okay people once again it's time to suit up strap in and ski like you stole it because this show is going to go downhill like the opening of a Bond movie. Oh, that's very exciting. You like that, don't you? Will people be turning around and shooting at one another while they're skiing? Because that would be awesome.

You never know. You know, alpine skiing has everything. Science, technology, tenacity, technique, and of course, snow. Plus the ever-present danger that comes when you play with gravity. Yes, and who better to bring the science of skiing than the author of Gold Medal Physics, our very good friend Professor Eric Goff from Lynchburg College in Virginia,

whilst we bring you a masterclass from two-time Olympians, Team Canada's fabulous Aaron Malzinski and Team USA's warhorse himself, Andrew Vybrecht. And if that is not enough for you, up close we'll have on Jake Stevens, the U.S. race director at Rossignol, one of, if not the leading ski manufacturer in the world. Yeah, so let's get stuck straight in, shall we? Shall we come out of the gates right now? How do you start a heat there, Erin?

What's it called when you start a heat? For dual, you say attention, and then it starts beeping and go. And for what I do, it's just race, ready, go. Race, ready, go. So let's do that. Okay, so for those of you who are wondering who that wonderful voice is, this is Erin Milzinski. She is part of Team Canada's ski team down in South Korea, Pyeongchang.

You've been to the Olympics twice before. So is this going to be something that you feel, right, I've been here, I understand, we go forward with this, or is it still, it's the Olympics, I'm nervous? I think it's always going to be, it's the Olympics, and you're going to be nervous with that, but I think with each year, I get a little bit more comfortable, I know what to expect, I know what I'm capable of, and I mean, I've had success, and I've had failure, and I've learned from each, and so I'm excited to kind of bring that forward as a more mature athlete. Of course, also with us is

Professor Eric Goff, author of Gold Medal Physics. How are you, Doc? How's it going? Doing great. How are you, Chuck and Gary and Erin? We're good. We're good. We're good. So Erin is a specialist in the slalom. So as such, would you break down what is taking place in the science as far as her racing is concerned? as her racing is concerned? Well, certainly you got to get up to a high elevation and you're going to allow some machine probably to get you up there. And you're going to get a lot of gravitational potential energy at the top of the hill. And you're going to want to convert that into speed

whenever you're going down the hill. And I mean, it's a let gravity pull you and do its thing. You're going to fight air resistance on the way down. You're going to fight the friction with the snow on the way down. We've talked about skating on the show before. The friction with the snow and the ski is about 10 times greater than what a skater gets on the ice. And the air resistance is obviously going to be something to slow the skier down. So lots of good aerodynamics and friction as we discuss this further. Go back. What forces are in play against a downhill skier in the slalom?

So you've got the friction with the ski and the snow is a big component of the force that's slowing them down. But you said about the downforce and the weight. Sure. You've got a component of the weight along the hill that's going to be pulling you down. So the earth is tugging you down. But you've got air resistance and the friction with the ski and the snow that's going to be pulling you back. And in fact, the overwhelming majority of the energy that's going to be given to you at the top from the gravitational energy is going to go into air resistance and that snow friction.

You get very, very little energy dumped into your speed increases on the way down. Absolutely. about air resistance. For you as a downhiller, it's about that positioning that you take, because we see you guys moving at these incredible speeds and you're in that tuck. So can you talk to us about your form and what it takes to get down the hill and the proper form necessary to do so? For sure. For the speed events, aerodynamics is much more important. You're at higher speeds. And so there's actually more air resistance against you. For the speed events, aerodynamics is much more important. You're at higher speeds. And so there's actually more air resistance against you. So the tuck is a very important thing. It's important to get your hands in front of your face to kind of break that wind before

we do testing in the air tunnels. And so they've tested even for girls, whether a braid or a ponytail is better. And actually a ponytail shockingly is faster. Um, who would have known? Yeah. Wait a minute. You mean the, the hair being free to flow with the wind is actually faster than braiding it and having it as one little tail. Yeah. Which makes no sense to most of us, but even to tuck it in, it's better to have the ponytail. And so we've done some testing like that. And I mean, even our suits down to what you're wearing under your suit is important or if anything is flopping around. And so your stance is important, having your knees right in front of your, having your, sorry, elbows right in front of your knees.

And so there's room for the air to go between your legs and around you. And then you use your arms in front of your face to kind of break that break that air and that's it's important to be low and it's important to keep this position no matter kind of what jostles you'll get along the way can you remember when we did the show about the physics of the tour de france with lance armstrong all of the top cyclists have borrowed that the skier's position that you've just described and brought it into cycling so all that position you see with with cyclists now is all down to the alpine skiers It borrows the skier's position that you've just described and brought it into cycling. So all that position you see with cyclists now is all down to the Alpine skiers. It's all from the Alpine skiers.

He told us that the bars that they rest on in the front, on the handlebars of the bike, that's for the same reason that you said. Now, is that because you're, is that like the entry into slicing the wind? Your hands or you're using them kind of like, what would that be called? Doc, is that like, what is that? When you're, Is that like an air dam or air foil? What is that when you're breaking the wind like that as you're slicing through it? Oh, yeah. And in fact, the conjecture I would have on the ponytail, aside from giving you a wee bit more horsepower, is that the hair in the back of the head is going to break up the boundary layer of air. It's kind of like roughening the soccer ball or the baseball or the golf ball surface.

Oh, wow. So you're going to kind of get that boundary layer broken a little bit so you get a little bit more of a turbulent flow in the back. So that reduces drag, right? That's right. That reduces drag. That's amazing. It's amazing, Aaron, that you've got a team that is prepared to analyze that degree of aerodynamic to give you an advantage down a slope.

And it's also unfair because look at me. I mean, seriously, I'm at a disadvantage here. You think? That's all I can say. Okay. Ah, dear. Someone get me a hairdresser. Yes. I have to work with this, Erin.

You can go away after this show. I have to stick around. When you're planning a route, it's quite obvious. Let's go in a straight line because that's the quickest way to the bottom. But that's not quite the way it happens. So how do you, your coaches, and your team strategize the way, the best way for you and your style of skiing from top to bottom? Well, for slalom, we're doing about 61 turns in 50 seconds. So we're doing more than a

turn a second. Yeah. So it's, I would say it's much quicker movements at slower speeds. And so I think the biggest for us is getting into that, getting up to that speed. And the biggest goal is never losing that speed. And so you do have the snow resistance and the air resistance, but you also have gravitational forces and also kind of rotational forces as you push down on the ski. And so the goal is to only work that fall line, only work with your skis pointing down the hill because every second your skis are pointing across the hill is time where you're slowing down and so the fastest people can actually it might not be that they have the highest speed throughout but they lose the least amount of speed through and so you're looking to not make mistakes to make the fewest amount of mistakes while pushing that line

finding that fall line and kind of always staying pointed down the hill. You sound as if you've got a really good grip on the science here inside your own sport. Yeah. To describe it as you just have. I've tried to become kind of a student of the sport. And I think you don't always get it when you're on the hill. But to understand what's kind of going on or why you're slow or why you're fast, it's very important to us. And also to stand in the start and kind of know what your goals are from start to finish do you actually use some of the friction you find underneath your skis to your advantage when you're turning

do you actually manipulate it so as you can use what looks like a negative into a positive in some ways um feeling the snow kind of gives you a little bit back. It gives you more feeling under your ski. So the feeling of the snow, if it's really icy and slippery, it's not the same. If you have a little bit of grit under your feet, then you actually feel like you can push harder on the snow and kind of give into the snow what it's going to release and then create that forward momentum. release and then create that forward momentum. And also we do use poles and it's kind of common for us to say that when our poles get too short, or if we use someone else's poles, you don't have that, those poles dragging on the ground. And so that feeling of the poles dragging on the ground, which might slow you down with kind of snow resistance, it also gives you a little balance

and feedback as to where you actually are on your ski. Eric, let me ask you this. What's the difference between when Aaron was just talking about the type of snow that's under the ski? So speak to us about the difference in physics and the response that the skis would have. And then Aaron, you can get in on this too. What's the difference when the snow is harder, softer, more powdery, or more icy? Yes. Yes. Well, certainly if it starts getting icy, you can hit patches where the friction goes down. And as you start to warm it slightly, but still at an icy stage,

it can even reduce the friction a little bit more. And of course, Aaron can speak to all the different waxes that are being used on the ski. You're going to put some kind of a slide wax toward the ends, and then you're going to probably use more of a gripping wax in the middle of the ski. And I'd love to hear her talking about the carve turning that she's doing, because there you're trying to minimize the amount of energy you're wasting in the snow. So when the ski is interacting with the snow, if you can get up on the edge and make these pretty, as viewed from above, when you see the helicopter cameras, you get these beautiful carves in the

snow where you're up on the edge of the snow making the fast turns that completely revolutionized skiing in the early 90s when those parallel turns gave way to the carve turns when the new parabolic skis came out as the professor got it about right there as far as you the way you feel it on the snow with the wax and everything else yeah for slalom the wax is much less important because the speed is slower right um which are and same with aerodynamics and we do, we don't really do much tucking, but that's just slower speeds and it kind of makes it more fair. Um, but with, in terms of how the ski actually does warm up the snow. And so this, the ski actually melts the snow under it

because you have so much friction and you have so much speed with that. And so, um, you can kind of see those marks left on the snow after. And also sometimes the track will get faster throughout the day. But also with that, the snow reacts much more differently, especially with these new parabolic skis. If the snow is soft, it doesn't give you much back. And so I guess our goal with these parabolic skis is you want to start bending the front of the ski first and you want the ski to kind of bend very uniformly you don't want to push a lot into one spot because an arc like you said if it's beautiful it is uniform

and so I think that the first point is to bite the top of the ski and so the rest of the ski can kind of follow along in that groove and then you kind of get that energy out of the ski and it's um it's amazing to actually feel how much energy comes out of the ski and kind of what you put in will come out um but for us as skiers it's the soft snow makes it very difficult because sometimes you put a lot in but the snow takes away so much energy that you get nothing else. So you actually kind of fold forward with your upper body because it's slowing you down so much under your feet. We like ice a lot and we like those hard conditions because that ski bites and it bends beautifully. And then when you release it, the ski actually has so much energy in it that it propels you towards the next gate.

And so you can use the way the ski bends. You can use the energy created in the ski. And with that, the energy you've put onto the snow and that is kind of what helps propel you forward. And the goal is to harness that energy and bring it to the next gate instead of kind of shying away from it and working across the hill. Because anything across is going to slow us down. Professor, just how much more energy is Erin experiencing in terms of using that parabolic ski? And then as she says, you can feel it kick through. So the old stem turns that they used to do when the skis were more parallel, they would sweep out more snow. And, you see an auto accident in NASCAR, let's say, and you see all the parts flying off, that's a good thing because it's carrying energy away that's not going into the

driver. When you're watching a skier and you see all that snow getting whipped off, that's taking energy from the skier. So whenever you can make these nice new parabolic skis and you get the carving action where you're up on one little edge of the ski when you're onto the sharp turns then you're getting a very little amount of ski that's getting shoved off to the side and there's very little energy wasted like that so it's it's a great way to go down and make fast turns because you're not losing a lot of energy whenever you're not kicking up a lot of snow well those parabolic skis seem to be working for you erin uh what is it two top tens at the moment in competition in europe where you are right now you must be in a good place sort of in terms of your skiing sort of how you're competing yeah i think things are

starting to get better i'm becoming more, a little bit calmer in my process. And so I had results early in my career and I think that I set some pretty unrealistic expectations on myself and that was a bit detrimental to me for a few years. And I feel like I'm starting to get it back. I'm starting to get that calm and I understand where I need to go and where I want my skiing to go. And it's changed a lot technically. And so I'm pretty excited about kind of heading into the games with this mindset. Talk about that calm for a second when you're on the hill. So here you are making these incredible movements every single second. And so can you kind of walk us through physically what's going on or do you even think about it physically what's going on? Could you even explain to us what is happening from one gate to the next? And do you ever visualize that kind of stuff?

I have so many questions, Aaron. I don't even know where to begin. Just one at a time, one at a time. Aaron. It's pretty crazy and slow because you are doing more than a turn a second. And so you have to think, if you're thinking of the gate you're at, you're behind, you're already too late. And so the earlier you can think the better. But for me, a lot of it is in terms of rhythm. If I get into that rhythm, get into that movement pattern, force myself to do it right out of the

start, it really helps because if you start behind the tempo or thinking behind, you're going to be behind the whole way down. And so you can, you can make a lot of changes fast. Um, you can move forward into the turn. You can keep your hands up. You can really arc. And I think that's comes from practice and from learning a lot. Um, but you would be surprised at how much can actually go through your head in 50 seconds, especially 50 seconds when you're kind of in danger a little bit and you're racing and you're trying to think of what you should do, but all these other things are popping into your head. And so I think that a lot of it is muscle memory and your muscle memory takes over. And so you can think of maybe between one and three things on the way down, but I don't think you can kind of rewrite the book on the way down.

Do you get to the point where I have to be slightly into the red zone, just not losing control, but have enough control, but just take it over that edge a little bit to ensure that I am ultimately competitive? For sure. I think it's always kind of riding on that edge. And for me, it's being calm while doing it. So I can't get tense. I can't push into that sixth gear. I'm not that kind of racehorse. It's trusting that rhythm, finding that rhythm and where the aggression comes from is my movements. I really have to force myself to kind of take an aggressive position with my body and also the way that I move and forcing myself to do it as early as possible, no matter how much speed is created. And because sometimes you can see the speed you're creating and it's pretty easy to shy away from it, knowing that if you make a mistake, you could get shot into the air.

You could get shot out of the course because you have so much energy riding in your skis and your body that sometimes it doesn't go down the hill sometimes it goes up sometimes it goes sideways and so i think it's it's always really important to um kind of remember that on the way down and take that into consideration so i'd actually like to build on what chuck and gary were asking you aaron because when I've talked to professional athletes before, many of them are much like you. They have a fantastic intuitive physics for what's going on. And I've always been curious, when did the game slow down for you? In other words, when did you reach a point where it got a little easier? You had a, a less tenseness. Where, where did that calm sink in? And the, and the, the, the actual game that you're playing is

actually slowing down for you more than it would for somebody else who's just starting. I mean, I think that throughout, I mean, I've been skiing since I was two, racing since I was six. So I think throughout my life, yeah, I think it's slow. And then as I improved, it got too fast because you start going faster and you're not really sure why. And you're just kind of along for the ride. The first time that I can ever remember it slowing down is when I started having my great results when I was a little bit younger and getting to the bottom and just remembering every movement I made, every step of the course, every thing that went through my head. And I mean, in 50 seconds, remembering all of that, it's, wow, it's a lot. And so I think that sometimes the speed skiers will come and ski slalom and they say, Oh my gosh, this is scary. It's coming at me so fast. And we think the same for speed.

And so I think sometimes eventually you get used to what you're doing but also there's when I feel that rhythm and feel that comfort on my skis everything moves a little bit more slowly and so there's not many things I could do more than one a second of but skiing is one of those things because you're trained and you're trained kind of as that racehorse and you have to think intuitively as well. And sometimes it's just letting your body take over because I mean, there's times that we jump off a plane, we're jet lagged, we haven't skied in months and you're have the course in front of you really icy snow and you just kind of have to, okay, stop thinking, just let my body take over because it's going to remember. I can't tell you how many times I've

been in that situation. I can. No. Wow. Actually, he just told you how many times. Yeah, it's none. It's none. Yeah. Professor, you've got another question burning on inside of you. Go on, fire away. So you may not see a whole lot of this with the slalom, but there are a couple rules of thumb in skiing that I've always been curious about. One is if you're having to do some jumps, that if you have kind of a gentle slope, the idea is to kind of avoid the jump. But if the slope gets a little bit steeper, you're advised to take the jump. Is that a rule of thumb you're familiar with? I mean, I don't do much jumping anymore, but, um, I think that any time spent off leaving the snow and then returning to the snow is time lost.

And so if you could keep your skis on the snow, even though you have that snow friction, it's actually faster. Um, and so sometimes when it is better to jump is if you have to gap something, if you know that when you land, you're going to land on a flat. And I guess what that rule of thumb might be is that you want to keep your skis kind of matched to the hill if you can over the jump. So no slapping off of it or landing on a flat. So that's why a lot of our jumps land on a steep. And if you can take less air, it's actually faster for us. Wow. So keep it on the steep. And if you can take less air, it's actually faster for us.

Wow. So keep it on the snow. Yeah. That's what we got to do. Keep it on the snow, baby. Stay grounded. I think that's going to be my new term. That's going to be my new philosophy in life.

Keep it on the snow. There you go. All right, guys. Fabulous. We wish we could spend more time with you. Aaron Malzinski, we wish you and Team Canada the very best of luck.

We will be rooting for you. Yes, we will. Good luck, Aaron. So more time with you. Aaron Milzinski, we wish you and Team Canada the very best of luck. We will be rooting for you. Yes, we will. Good luck, Aaron. So fabulous. Thank you. And professors, thank you very much. Aaron Milzinski, once again, from Team Canada and their ski team. Fabulous.

And, of course, the good professor, Professor Eric Goff from Lynchburg, Virginia. We are going to take a break, but it doesn't stop there. We'll have U.S. race director from Rossignol, Jake Stevens, with us. So don't go away. We'll be back very, very shortly. Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. Yes, and this is Playing With Science. And today we're all about the downhill, all about alpine skiing. Yes, and joining us now to talk skis is Jake Stevens, the U.S. race director at Rossignol or Hossignol Group. And welcome to the show, Jake. Hey, Jake, give us the correct pronunciation, please, so we can get it wrong.

Yeah, we'll be Rossignol. Yeah, Rossignol yeah rossignol yeah i remember uh so what is it about rossignol skis that has made you so iconic because uh i remember the first thing i ever heard about skis we're hearing people going yo i got my new rossi's yo so what is up what what what is the history of rossi history big history that makes you guys so doggone iconic i don't ski so that's you know i've only heard people talk about it. Yeah, the brand's been around for a long time. 1907 is when this started.

In the skiing world, they've been iconic, like you said. And in the racing world, we've been around the entire time. The history, the heritage, the drive for racing has always been there um so it's been a staple in the skiing world and in the racing world since the start of of skiing and uh or at least ski racing um i can't say the start of skiing but right on very good yeah wood skis metal skis carbon fiber. Ross and you were at the cutting edge, the beginning of all of that. So you are U.S. race director.

I am. Please just expand on that role for not just Chuck and I, but our listeners, please. Okay. Yeah. So I'm in charge of everything racing for Rossignol in the United States. racing, um, for Rossignol and the United States. So anything from the little beginner first year person, um, that's going into a ski shop and buying their first pair of skis or race skis, um, to our world cup athletes. So Olympic level, um, anything in between. So if you're buying skis at a ski shop that, uh, are Rossignol, uh, I've had something to do with it in the United States. And then if you see a guy or gal in the Olympics,

I've kind of worked with those athletes as well to get them, hopefully, to the level where they can compete and win a medal. That's pretty wide-ranging because, I mean, having worked in sort of sportswear marketing, I've never heard anyone have such a holistic brief as yours from, you know what, this is your first ever pair of skis to these are the ones that you're going to wear when you win the gold medal. That's pretty, that's pretty wide ranging. Yeah, it's wide ranging. It's exciting because I get to see kids start, you know, some of the kids have, you know, they're young. I see them, you know, I don't work directly with an athlete that's six years old.

But by the time they're 12, 13, 14 years old, I'm seeing them or talking to them pretty regularly until they're, you know, 19, 20, 25. Then I'm really involved. And I'm currently at the World Junior Ski Championships in Davos, Switzerland. I'm currently at the World Junior Ski Championships in Davos, Switzerland. And today, two Americans were actually on the podium, two Rossignol athletes that I started working with five years ago. And I've seen them compete for the last five years. And now they're standing on the podium in the men's Super G at the World Junior Championships. And hopefully we'll see them standing on the podium in the next Olympics. Nice.

So when you know what he's saying, there's something I work with talent identification in the soccer world, in the UK for one of the major sportswear brands. And I know from what Jake's just described, there is nothing they are not prouder of than having identified talent at an early age and are able to see it sail forward and upwards with their name attached

to it. And it really is. It's a great feeling. Is it not, Jake, within the organization? It's phenomenal. Today was a fun day. It was really cool to see two of our athletes come down the hill and you can't be prouder. You absolutely cannot be prouder. It's like the best part of parenting without any of the crap. It's awesome. Exactly. Yeah. I think Jake will agree with me if I go, meh. Let me tell you. I mean, where you are, we started with the original solid wooden skis. Where you are now as a brand, it's not just skis. It's the clothing. It's the ski wear. It's the clothing, it's the ski wear, it's the boots. Yeah, it's bindings, it's place.

It's everything. When you really look at what we're working with, you know, people see the skis on the podium. They think of the brand as a ski, you know, a ski company, a ski brand. But we're building plates that go on the skis. We're building bindings that go on the skis, the boots that go on the foot that go on the binding that go on the skis. We're building bindings that go on the skis, the boots that go on the foot, that go on the binding, that go on the skis. Um, and all of those things, you know, you have to take into consideration when you're working with an athlete, uh, and how they fit with your brand and how they fit with the product. And it's funny because I look at the older, um, even though I've never skied, uh, you, everybody loves downhill and loves the Olympics and loves the super G and the

slalom and all that kind of stuff in the, when you're looking at skiing. And when you look at some of the older footage, you see these guys wearing these like snowsuits, you know what I mean? Like the kind of snowsuit you put your kid in when you send them off to school and then you see them today and they're in spacesuits, you know? Do you guys have any hand in that? And are you actively developing technology for the apparel that goes on the slopes?

Not when you're looking at the racing side of things. Okay. You know, the tight speed suit that the athletes wear. We are so involved with the skis and the bindings and the plates. It's almost too much for us to get involved in the other side of things. We kind of entrust that in the other brands that work specifically in the apparel side of things. We do make helmets and goggles and poles, protection.

But there's so much technology going into every piece. We really focus, and what I work specifically with my athletes on, is how their setup, skis, boots, bindings are, and how that's going to affect their performance. Let's talk skis for a second, because can you break down? I was just looking, just out of my curiosity the different type of skis so so let's go for the sort of the parabolic skis because they're the they're the new kid on the block yeah i suppose so how are we working with those these days um so well we're kind of in a uh position where we've had we've had this product around for a while now. We change skis every year. We're developing new skis, new product every year. We're kind of in a

place where we have to follow rules and the rules determine how much shape we can have to the ski. When parabolic skis or when shape skis first came out, it was kind of a free for all. You can do whatever you want to do, kind of create anything that's going to be fast. And for the safety of the athletes, because of the speed that they're going, we've had to create rules that every company has to follow and stay within. So when you look at a pair of skis on the wall at your ski shop, they're going to look very different than a race ski. A race ski is going to be very narrow underneath the foot of the athlete

and the tip and tail is going to seem very narrow. And that's really for the safety of the athlete because when we could stretch kind of the boundaries of the shape of the ski, you kind of put the athlete in danger. So we've worked with our governing bodies to come up with a rule system that allows every company to kind of follow, you know, the NASCAR sort of Formula One idea where you can stretch it as far as you can, but don't go outside the rules. Do you work a lot with your own particular athletes in not just color palettes and colorways, but in shape design? in not just color palettes and colorways, but in shape design. They said, look, my style is such and such. Therefore, I need a ski that allows me to have a direct connection to the ice, to the snow, to whichever condition I'm in.

Do they give you that feedback or do you just say, these are your winners, off you go? Yeah, at the World Cup level or at the uh the level of an olympic athlete yeah for sure we work with these athletes to figure out what is the absolute best ski for that athlete within the rules um so when it comes down to what do we build for a ski um and how do we work with them it's what's inside the ski that really is the term the determining factor um or what we change um which is what without giving away all your ip what is inside the ski sir oh yeah we have there's wood the race skis are wood core um and we use many different types of wood cores that you know we play with all sorts of different things every type of wood every tree

would will react different um so we play with that. Um, we play with metals, we play with plastics, we play with different colors, sidewalls, different thickness edges. At the end of the, at the end of it, there are so many combinations. It's, it's pretty wild what we have to offer these athletes to try. Uh, and then once we figure out a combination that's working, uh, it slowly works its way down the system to our younger athletes. Can you make a ski that is too fast? No, not at all. We work hard.

Like today, the event that we were at today, it's the Super G or the downhill. These events, we are trying to make the absolute fastest ski possible. And, you know, with the base materials and the wax that's being put into the ski, the time and effort that's put into it, you want the absolute fastest ski you can possibly make. Can you see a day when you have super tech skis where not guys like Chuck and I, who are, let's just say, below Olympic standard. Not much, just enough to be out of the competition. I'm in good enough shape to take a chairlift.

So as I can find telemetrics, I have all the GPS stuff, I know everything that's going on with my athlete in every training run, with every competition. Are you there yet, or are you about to get there? Yeah, we, we play with a lot of this stuff. Um, within the rule systems, you actually can't use, um, you can't use any sort of technology to advance the ski to create any power.

Um, no, no, I'm just saying for data feedback. Yeah. We're using some pretty wild stuff with the data feedback where, um, we can understand G forces. We can understand speed. Um, we can understand where the turn starts and stops, uh, the movement pattern between the gates, how quickly the ski, the boot, the bindings reacting, um, and then what the movements of the athlete are. And from there we can design can design, okay, the ski is doing too much or the boot's doing too much or not enough. And how do we work with that to better our athletes?

So how have your athletes and their coaches reacted to this kind of technology and have they incorporated it and have you seen the performance improve as a result? There's some hesitation to it for sure. If you look, you know, ski racing has evolved from a sport where guys and gals hurled themselves down the mountain without much technology. And as the sport has evolved, of course, companies have come in and said, Hey, you know, we know this information. And the coach says, well, you know, I'm, I see the day-to-day I know what my eyes see. And this tells me this, and we're saying, well, maybe the data doesn't tell you that. And so there's a hesitation that with that, but as we've, as we've seen with any

sport and you can look across all sports and see that data doesn't lie. Our information gives good feedback, and it's starting to be adopted across all athletic ability levels. Jake, that day is coming, and it's coming soon. It is coming. Where you just give the guys the data, and they go, okay. Exactly. the guys the data and they go okay exactly yeah so speaking of technology as a fan of downhill skiing on television and as a fan of uh technology and cartoons when can we look forward to rocket skis please yeah there's cool technologies coming we have some technologies with a piston

we put a piston on the on the front of a ski, um, that actually controls the, uh, reverse camber of a ski. And it looks like a rocket, a rocket booster, but it's on the front of the ski. It's like a mountain bike fork on the front of the ski. And it's pretty cool technology coming fast. Is that to damper when you see those guys going down and they're like on the edges and you see the front of the ski going pop, pop, pop, pop, pop up and down, up and down. Is that, is that to reduce that kind of vibration? Yeah, absolutely. You're spot on with that. That's a, that's the idea there. It's, it's the reverse camber. That's, that's bad for you. Um, and, uh, yeah, you lose elevation, um, elevation, you know, gravity is a wild thing.

And if you, uh, if you can reduce the amount of elevation you lose, uh, the faster you're going to be that, you know, the more, the more acceleration you're going to carry from turn to turn. And so, yeah, you're spot on. Super cool. That is man, man. Let me tell you something. I got to tell you, Jake, you it's so interesting. And what you do is so fascinating. You almost make me a black man want to go into the cold and ski but not quite enough are you headed off to korea when are you coming up with skis that i can use like uh on on a green hill in the summertime yeah they've got grass ski and you could take our skis anytime grass skiing in the summer. I want those skis up with them guaranteed not to fall over in. Yeah.

We haven't made those yet. Yeah, I know. That's cool, man. That's super cool. Isn't it great? Are you headed off to South Korea for the Winter Olympics or are you going to be like Chuck and I, a television viewer? Yeah, I'm not.

I'm here at the World Junior Championships for another week. We have another five events at this thing and it kind of overlaps the Olympics. Um, and then I head back to the States. Uh, we have a full, a full staff that travels with the world cup crew, the Olympic crew. Um, you know, we have a full world cup season that starts in December and runs are really October, but, um, full, we go full gas from December through March. Um, and so that crew is traveling with the, you know, the circus as we call it. Um, and they'll be with the, you know, the circus, as we call it. Yeah.

And they'll be at the Olympics. So they've got all that handled and I'm getting the young kids ready for the next batch. So four years from now, hopefully the kids I'm here with are going to be, you know, holding the American flag proud. Hey, man. Well, we appreciate all of you too. It's fantastic. We wish all of your athletes the very best of luck, no matter which nation they represent.

How's that sound? Exactly. That's fantastic. We wish all of your athletes the very best of luck no matter which nation they represent. How's that sound? Exactly. That's a fair statement. If they ski on Rosignol, we want them to win. That's awesome. As long as they're holding up the Rosignol ski,

then guess what? It's all good, right? All gravy. All right, Jake Stevens, thank you so much from Rosignol Group. Yeah, man. Learn something about skis.

And who knew you knew this much about skis? No, man. I'm a big fan like i like to watch it i just don't want to do it you know what i mean it's like uh i feel that way about a lot of things in life all right well with that breaking news we'll take a break uh when we get back that olympic medalist yes that one andrew weibrecht will be with us the war horse don't go away.

Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. This, of course, is Playing With Science. Today, if you didn't already know, we are going downhill fast, but in style. Wait, isn't that every day with us? I know, but this time we're going down faster and with more style because we have none other than Olympic medalist Andrew Weibrecht of Team USA. A man, I don't know, is he one of five U.S. men only in history to get more than one medal. That's right.

What an honor. And of course, the good professor, Professor Eric Goff is still with us. Absolutely. Andrew, how are you? Absolutely. So, Jacob. Andrew, how are you? Great. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me on the show.

This is awesome. Dude, we're so happy to have you here. And Andrew's a big fan of Playing With Science. And Andrew's a listener? He is. This is our honor. That's even better. This is truly an honor for us then, you know?

Absolutely. And Professor, thanks for coming back and being with us. We got some great stuff to get into right here. Andrew, first of all, before we even get into like the science and all that kind of great stuff, got to talk to you about something that you wrote where you said that you saw a change in your game when you started treating every training run as a race. Now, I just got to ask, is that exhausting? Like, that's got to be tough mentally, man.

It's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. Yeah, I mean, you know, it kind of comes down to, at the end of the day, taking less runs and just making sure that the qualities are always there rather than you know you can do a lot of quantity but if it's if it's a bunch of junk then you know who cares see the thing is when you train like you compete you end up with a silver medal and a bronze medal and andrew is headed off to south korea not long after we finish this interview and he's going to try and get the complete set yeah baby guarantee it because and that must be it you are attacking every training session like it was a competition right and therefore when you compete you've got extra value because you're competing in the

olympics or you're competing in a world cup and it just can't help but come up a notch is is that how you've intentionally structured your training yeah absolutely you know i mean we train train south america new zealand all summer and and so it's it's kind of a long process what we go through but um you know just you're constantly trying to build up to to put yourself in in race condition and, you know, I've always treated it like if I can, you know, treat the training as aggressively and, you know, really put the same mental approach and the same physical preparation into training runs, then that definitely translates into the race runs.

Sweet. Tell us about the War Horse. Oh, please, read my mind. Where did the War Horse come from, man? Yeah. Great, great, great play on Broadway, but you're doing it. You're doing it completely different. What's it, where'd that come from? The War Horse? Um, that was, I think that came, you know, when I, when I first made the team, I was, um, you know, trying to make up for what I lacked in skill with pure intensity and um I just kind of picked up that moniker as I went but yeah no um it's kind of stuck with me but it's it's all good that's almost British understatement there you attack the mountain let's be fair you come out

of that gate and you roar at the mountain do you not I mean that's what you got to do if do. If you don't attack the mountain, it's going to eat you up. So that's the way it goes. What a great attitude. We have something in common. Your nickname is War Horse. My nickname is Lame Horse. Oh, dear. Professor, let's get to a little bit of physics.

Now, Andrew, you're about 5'7". Yeah, that's right. So is that about the right stature or the sort of average stature for a guy who's doing your sort of thing with a super G in the downhill? Well, certainly the smaller you are, the smaller your cross-sectional area you're facing the wind. Although the one tradeoff with that is the heavier you are, the less the air resistance is going to influence you because you've got more mass, you're going to accelerate a little less. So, I mean, I would love to ask Andrew, on the physics side of this, whenever you're going, I mean, these downhill runs, you can be going 80 miles an hour on the skis and you're in a very tucked position to try

to reduce your air drag. And you're just, I mean, I can't even visualize outside of the confines of a car, what 80 miles an hour is like on a, you know, uh, on skis. I mean, how much training do you have to get to how many years before you could actually get to a point where you could get to a speed like that without having too much worry about a little, you know, nick in the snow or a slight turn of the ankle and then all of a sudden you're crashing? Yeah, I mean, you know, been there, done that a lot of times. But, you know, I mean, they do a lot for us for protection. So the crashing is generally not too bad. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, to kind of go back to, you know, what you guys were talking about. I'm, I'm definitely, I think on the speed side of, of Alpine ski racing right now, I'm

the shortest guy. So, um, you know, typically guys are more six foot, um, you know, up to six, seven. One of the guys on our team is seven yeah um it's like a tree coming down the mountain guy is in a tuck and he's still like uh 5 10 guys 5 10 when he's in full tuck professor andrew must have then a lower center of gravity then you put him in a tuck position, which we've discussed with Aaron just earlier on, that must be advantageous, surely. Sure, you're going to get a little bit more stability that way. And if there's any little, you know, wind or something that's going to give

you a slight torque that's going to try to turn you over, the lower your center of mass is, the more stability you're going to have. That's right. So talk about that, Andrew, with respect to weight. So the professor mentioned earlier, you know, there's one advantage that you have with the lower center of gravity, but then he said also that it's something about the heavier you are, the better gravity will play with you. Do you ever find any challenge weight wise? Yeah. You know, I mean, I've, it's, it's kind of a trade-off like um you know right now i'm probably about 188 pounds something like that um i've been 200 pounds before and you know obviously you know aerodynamically um in and in in terms of momentum you carry a lot more speed when when you're heavier same um you know volume but uh you know there's also the side of it that you need to be athletic you need to be fast on your feet stuff like that

and um you know at the end of the end of the run you still need the energy to kind of finish and and the heavier you are the tougher that is i mean it just tires you out more so there's kind of a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, I think. Cool. When you're lining up at the gate, once you break the gate, question one with question A and B, what's your biggest asset? And on the way down, what's your biggest enemy for you as a super G and a downhiller? It's a good question.

For me personally as an as you personally for generally just you personally i'm interested in you sir you know for me it's it's really the momentum side of of the the courses is my toughest part um you know when it's when it's technical when there's a lot of turns when it's deep you know i have no problem um you know when when things get a little bit more just taking the speed off off the pitch that you came off of and and conserving it across the flat that's that's where i tend to have more of an issue hey do me a favor now that you mentioned technical can you walk us through what it takes technically to on a giant slalom to go from one side to the other? It looks like you guys are sitting down in a chair and using your legs as shock absorbers.

But yet your torso seems to be like completely stable. It's weird to see like the way your body is moving. It's almost humanly unnatural the way your body is moving. Can you walk us through that? And then can you tell me how do you get to do that, man? Because you got to be in some really good shape to do that. Yeah, I mean, you know, the sport's really based around lower body strength and core strength. So it's, you know, obviously the further your hip gets closer to the snow, you know, the more counterbalance you need with your upper body to kind of, you know, keep everything, keep yourself from falling over. So you got to kind of force your upper body to the outside as your hip goes to the inside. And it's, you know, it's like you said, it's super unnatural. It puts a huge, huge amount of torque on your back and your knees.

And that's why, you know, everybody's pretty much constantly hurt in this sport. But when you're actually in competition and you're about to go into the big one, as we know, how long in advance do you get to know the course? And if you do, do you use technology such as virtual reality headsets to any time in advance to go through all of that without having the bank, the bangs and the bruises and the crashes? Yeah. Um, we've used virtual reality a little bit, um, you know, just to kind of get, get an idea, just get physical, uh, visual cue points and stuff like that for the course. Um, we've used virtual reality a little bit, um, you know, just to kind of get, get an idea, just get visual, uh, visual cue points and stuff like that for the course. How's that work for you?

Um, I don't, I've used it a little bit. I don't love it. You know, I, I, I watch a lot of video of guys, um, you know, from previous years and kind of, you know know i just keep the course so many times that i i have a pretty good idea of where i'm going but to to watch guys do it you know it's always been helpful for me i'm pretty visual learner but um um you know typically for for super g the coaches go and inspect the night before they can they can video kind of what the course looks like um as they slip through it. So we,

we have a chance to look at that. And that's, that's where we've used virtual reality most actually is, is with that coach's inspection. And that's pretty fresh because that's obviously just within hours of your race time. That's, that's the night before. So as,

as they, they set the course, um, you know, the, the day before all the coaches can go down and just take a look at it and you know just just see it they let them video it and then for the athletes we have an inspection in the morning you know typically like nine o'clock say and then

we'll have the race run at 11 o'clock wow not a lot of time. Yeah. We get one look. We get one look and that's it. So what's that do when it comes to the position in the race that you're, or so if you, what your heat number is, what, what's, is it better to be first? Is it better to be last? Is it better to be somewhere in the middle of the pack so you can watch the other guys? I mean, snow conditions, what's it, what's, what's the best position for you i mean it's generally totally specific on the day you know there's and and specific to the athlete you know

there's there's guys that love to run first you know they just feel like that's that's what works for them you know i i'd rather run a little bit more towards the middle get get a chance to watch some guys on tv see how trains kicking see what's going on and stuff like that. See how the speed is. So let me get the good professor back in here for a second. So, you know, here's Andrew headed down the hill around 80 something miles an hour, which is just humanly mind boggling. I ride a motorcycle. Well, I used to before my wife took it away from me.

Yes, I'm a very manly man. But I can tell you that 80 miles an hour on a bike, turn your head to the side and it's a whole nother world. Okay. I can't imagine 80 miles an hour on a pair of skis. What kind of forces are being exerted on Andrew's body, Professor, when he's going down a hill at that kind of speed? And then, Andrew, can you tell us, like, what are you feeling when that's happening, or are you feeling anything? Professor? Well, he's essentially hit, you know, what we would call a terminal speed. I mean, he's not really speeding up much as long as the slope is staying about, you know, the same angle. So he's getting, uh, not quite the feeling of a, of a skydiver, but it's, it's a similar feeling where you've got, uh, an air resistance

force. That's basically balancing your, your component of weight down and in your, in your snow friction is added in there as well. Um, don that the super G and the downhill and stuff, that's going to be, I think that's the Zhongxian Alpine Center is where they're doing that. So I think this is around 4,500 feet elevation. And when you start getting up to those elevations, the air density is going down. So you're reducing the air resistance a little bit, which is what leads to these great speeds. And I'd love to ask Andrew, do you start training at elevation and anticipation for these events? Do you try to find somewhere of comparable elevation?

Because you're going to have a little less oxygen intake when you get up in that mountain. Typically, actually a lot of the training we do is at high elevation just because, you know, summer trainings in Chile, that's at nine, 10, 11,000 feet. Um, you know, and then the earliest snow we get is in Colorado. So that's going to be up at 11, 12,000 feet. So, um, you know, the elevation isn't, isn't that much of an issue. You know, we're, we're fairly used to it. Um, you know, I don't know if from a physical skiing standpoint, other than getting more tired, that there's really any difference from skiing at sea level or, or higher elevations. Um, well, less air density, so less air resistance,

you can go faster, the higher up you get. Yeah, sure um you know i i i don't really know that anybody's really thought about that that much to be honest i mean like you know from a scientific standpoint for sure you know it makes it makes sense and or it it is what it is but uh yeah you know i've never actually noticed a marked difference from skiing at 10,000 feet versus 2,000 feet. Cool. So, all right, now back to the need for speed because that's what this is really about. What does it feel like to be going 80-something miles an hour on a pair of slats going down a mountain? And then secondly, how does it feel if you beat someone or someone beats you by four hundredths of a second?

Doesn't even seem fair that in anywhere else in life. That's called a tie. Like if you're the kid, if you're the kid in the neighborhood who beats another guy by four hundredths of a second and you're like, no, dude, I totally beat you. That guy's a dick and he can't play with us anymore. It's on his choice. Someone has issues. Yeah, well, to actually clarify it, the

highest speeds we've gone, this was a couple years ago, clocked in a race we do in Switzerland every year, was over 100 miles an hour. Oh my God! Ticket! So you're short, Kate? Ticket! Oh my God! He had 80 miles an hour, he an hour he was slowing down slowing down at 80 miles i'm an old lady at 80 miles an hour i'm old lady chuck doing 80 miles an hour down a mountain damn really 100 miles an hour plus yeah let me just ask the most redundant

question you'll hear all day was that a thrill i mean no. I mean, it's a thrill in the sense that you might kill yourself and it's also not that fun because you might kill yourself. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. So now at that speed, what is going through your head because, or is there nothing going through your head? So back to the motorcycle analogy, here's what I love about being on a motorcycle at speeds above 120 miles an hour. On a track, never on the road. Not on a track.

Oh, totally on the road. In the middle of the night. And I'm drunk. Yeah, bitch, that's how I roll! I'm joking. I'm joking. Everybody out there, I'm a comedian. Those are jokes.

No, but let me just say, the reason why you like it, it's the only thing ever in my life that ever completely emptied my head. Like you cannot think about anything. So I'm just, I'm just kind of, what is going through your mind at that point? Cause see all I'm, I'm just on a bike, the machine's doing it. You are actually doing it.

So it's gotta be different. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's a a couple things because, you know, one, it's a race. So you're trying to, at any cost, try to go faster, be more aerodynamic, do the best that you can to put down a good run. So, you know, there's always that component of it. And then, you know, from a physical standpoint it's it's crazy you know like i mean you know being on a motorcycle like things things kind of get weird you put your arm out and and everything kind of happens pretty quickly or yeah there's there's like kind of a

weird noiseless void almost you know it gets so loud that it kind of turns into a big white noise and you know stuff stuff just comes really quick yeah it doesn't adjust that it kind of turns into a big white noise and you know, stuff, stuff just comes really quick. It doesn't adjust. That's super cool. You look in a couple of yards and all of a sudden it's on you, you know, before, before you know it. Wow. So, okay. Now with that in mind, I'm sorry.

You just excited me. You've got a thread. You've got a thread. I got a thread going here because we were talking to Aaron Milzinski, right? From Team Canada? From Team Canada. Yeah. Okay. So one of the things she was talking about is like a general rule is you want to keep it on the snow you want to keep your skis on the snow now when i watch you guys man air seems to be like the worst thing that can happen to you dudes like you're going down so fast and then like if you come up off

and i've seen this happen where the skier comes off the surface of the slope just a little bit and then all of a sudden it seems like that they open up like like they're being forced to open up like you see them kind of like their body expands but they look like they're fighting it the whole way so i'll ask you both eric from a physics standpoint and andrew from a skier standpoint what's happening there you know i mean that's a big part of our training is jump training and and terrain training um because you know at those speeds it's pretty easy to to get in the air and um you know you're really trying to fight as hard as you can to stay on the ground but um you know jumping's part of it they they build jumps into our courses so uh, um, you know, really it's

about trying to keep, you know, cause you, you got, you've got skis on, which are a fairly, um, wind resistant thing when you're, when you're in the air and then, uh, you know, your, your body position, you know, can dictate a lot of, of how you fly through the air. So, um, a lot of, a lot of it's trying to stay compact and stay, you know, kind of keep the tips of your skis going down the hill so you don't get almost elevated or flipped around backwards. So, you know, there's a lot of actual technical training that goes into jumping for us, not only doing it fast but doing it safe.

So, Professor, I mean, those sort of speeds, you know, you're getting close to takeoff. So he's got a change in aerodynamics once a skier, any skier at those speeds becomes airborne. Sure. And I mean, some of the jumps that can be done on a fairly steep slope, the skier could actually go 50 yards before even touching back down again. Sweet. I mean, you know, half a football field. Totally awesome.

Totally awesome. You know, and, and of course the tendency is whatever you're being propelled into the air, you're going to want to come up a little bit out of your crouch. So, you know, it's going to take a lot of core strength to, to keep that down a little bit. Andrew, before you let me go, it seems the bigger the stage, the bigger the performance you deliver.

Obviously, where does that come from? And are you getting set to deliver your biggest performance ever in South Korea? Oh, man, I hope so. But, you know, I think it, like we were talking earlier, you know, it comes from the way that you prepare for things.

If you can create a game plan that's been built over, you know, really the last two years and where you're training for to be in your element on any given day, you know, that allows you to kind of rise above the added pressure and, you know, just kind of do your game plan, do your thing. You know, I think a lot of the Olympics are tough for people sometimes because a lot of people ski outside of their element. You know, they're not comfortable or they try to push it too hard. And, you know i've always i've always been good at kind of sticking to my plan and skiing within myself and uh yeah man i hope um you know i hope it all works out again well that's an understatement if we ever heard one because guess what we hope it all works out too man and we wish you no pressure at all we wish you we wish you the slowest seeming hill possible while you're going the fastest you've ever gone. And we also wish that you will bring home the gold, my friend.

Right on. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah, you got gold from us. We wish you gold. That's as simple as it gets. Good luck, Andrew. Andrew, thank you and good luck. I hope the gold medal physics is with you. Yeah. Hey, I got on the podcast with you guys, so that's about all. Oh, that's our pleasure. That's our pleasure.

That's our gold medal. And our pleasure again, we'll be seeing you on that podium with gold. That will be it, sir. This is our wish. And listen, man, when you win gold, you, you're coming back. Chuck and I are going to claim a little part of that. That's all just purely selfishly. It's all you guys. Brilliant. All right, buddy. Fabulous. Thanks so much. Safe travels. And Professor, thanks to you. Professor, thank you so much.

Glad to be on the show. And Professor Eric Goff. Oh, man, going to his third, not one, not two, but third Olympic Games. That's right, man. We're looking forward to it. It's going to be awesome. Almost as good as this show. Probably. Probably, but maybe. I don't know. it. It's going to be awesome. Almost as good as this show. Probably, but maybe, I don't know. Look,

that's it for us. This was a good one, man. Wasn't that? More gold than Fort Knox. That's the way it goes. Right, this has been Playing With Science Alpine Skiing Special. Hope you've enjoyed it. We'll be back with a new one very, very soon.