Why did we lose? Towards an integrated approach towinter sports science

Abstract

Women’s Downhill podium of Sochi in 2014 is likely to remain in the Olympic Winter Games history [1]. After 100 s at Rosa Khutor’s slope, Dominique Gisin, Tina Maze, and Lara Gut arrived at the finish line wrapped in just 10/100 of a second. More than 2700m of race, with several turns and jumps; and the difference between first and third place was less than 3m, i.e. in the order of 1%! Even more extraordinary was the result of the first two Athletes: exactly the same time, giving to the annals the first ex aequo gold medal of Winter Olympics. The same result, accurate to a hundredth of a second, was obtained by athletes differing in ages, nationalities, anthropometric characteristics, technical equipments, and race number. In Winter Sports and Olympics it was not the first time, in different disciplines. Even without these exceptional events, in modern sports differences between top athletes are almost minimal. It often happens that long races like the 50 km Cross Country Skiing of Vancouver 2010 end at photo finish: achieving the podium is often a matter of hundredths of second or centimetres. Athletes, coaches, trainers, researchers, engineers, and practitioners ask: where are the differences? It is still possible to improve [2, 3]?