OXFODSHIRE PRO

[Stevie Boy]

So heading into the weekend and the OXFOD PRO in the UK, I truly hope the weather picks up, it has been a disastrous year for us in the UK, the weather has been awful, nobody has skied a whole lot, Wind 15mph gusting 27mph, Persistent Rain, Low Temperatures, I think that the water temps at the moment range from 15 Degrees to 18 Degrees.

Keeping my fingers crossed for some Sunshine

[chrislandy]

The water was early 70's (22degC) at our lake the other day so I'm hoping it's going to be similar

The courses at Oxford WSC are pretty sheltered so wind shouldn't be too much of an issue, although I share your hope for sunshine it's likely misguided... it is England... and "Summer" lol

Saturday night slalom weather looks best 🤞

[rogerw]

Anything booked the same time as Wimbledon, is always risky.

[Stevie Boy]

Just to inform anybody travelling around the M25, Junction 10 to 11 is closed this weekend, check your travel routes to and from the venue, various roadworks and delays possible on the M4.

[itsallyellow]

Yes the weather has been horrendous so far, our lake got up to 22 but has now dropped back down to 20. Have managed to get out on glass only 4 or 5 times. Our lake is pretty much either completely flat or completely chopped up. Not much of an in between.

Can we just turn up to spectate on Saturday? Couldn't find any info on the OWSC website.

 

[chrislandy]

There was a spectator registration link somewhere, it was on the pro-am website & FB not OWSC

[rogerw]

9 hours ago, chrislandy said:

There was a spectator registration link somewhere, it was on the pro-am website & FB not OWSC

HAve you got to register to spectate?

[VermontSkier]

What's the story with this lake? Looks challenging!

[Stevie Boy]

There has been so much rain, the water level at Oxford! Is much higher than normal,  resulting in wash making contact with the banks a lot higher up, this creates irregular movement on the water, very likely every turn will feel different, hard to establish rhythm. 

Just my take on it, would be interesting to get competitors comments,  challenging has been mentioned, by some, Wind, WaterTemperature , Air Temperature and High Water, is never going to be easy.

[chrislandy]

On 7/11/2024 at 8:26 PM, rogerw said:

HAve you got to register to spectate?

I think it's just to gauge numbers, 

 

Lake is high, about 3ft higher than normal but at least 1ft lower than a month or so ago.

The pros gave struggled a bit, but the amateurs have done quite well

Lake is about 22degC, the night round will be fun

[skibrent]

Loving the coverage of this and the other events by the TWBC team. It’s the middle of winter here in Southern New Zealand. Water and air temp here both not at all conducive to skiing ☹️.

[kc]

Whose idea was it to cut up blue shower curtains to make the skier bibs? 😬

[OldboyII]

Among the skiers I like Allie Nicholson the most. If she slowed down speed of her speech from 55K to 49K as an interviewer I would become her slave 🙂

[jercrane]

9 hours ago, kc said:

Whose idea was it to cut up blue shower curtains to make the skier bibs? 😬

The nice thing is it looks like they can use them as changing robes after they are done skiing. 

[Than_Bogan]

Any final word on whether spectators can just show up?

My daughter is in London and seriously considering it.

[Stevie Boy]

Not sure, but thinking they are not going to turn people away, it's not that sort of venue.

Just for interest the Nautique 200 they are running has the New 6.2 Engine.

[Brokenstack]

I love that they are running the 200.  Last currently made slalom boat that looks like a boat.

[OldboyII]

On 7/13/2024 at 6:26 AM, kc said:

Whose idea was it to cut up blue shower curtains to make the skier bibs? 😬

It does look like english humor. Beeb seems is made of Oxford Fabric:

""

What is Oxford fabric material?

 

 

 

Originally made from pure cotton, but increasingly blended with other additional materials such as polyester and rayon for stretch or wrinkle free characteristics. Machine washable, retains shape, naturally resists wrinkles so requires little ironing.

[DvarianDan Johnson]

Interesting venue, home country for Brits. OK........

Night finals were interesting, cool to watch, and yes a novelty but I do not believe the pros liked the strangeness of skiing in the dark with lighted buoys, etc.  Everyone was notably way off, no depth perception, sense of speed all off, etc.  As they noted, there was no way to even judge entrance gates as you couldn't even see them on the near end and couldn't see the skier til 1/2 way to 1 ball. Drone shots were way cool but again it was more the novelty factor than anything. Does anyone really think any of them are going to practice skiing at night?    Onward.......................      

[vtmecheng]

@DvarianDan Johnson I agree. It was a fun idea but ultimately lead to a situation that I can’t imagine a skier is going to train for. Also, it seems like a really unnecessary danger. Think of what would happen if a skier falls in a dark area. The boat would have a hell of a time  finding the skier. I was surprised that they didn’t put waterproof LEDs on the skier’s backs or something. It seemed like they hadn’t actually tried this before the event.

[BlueSki]

I’ve skied a few tournaments at night. It’s super fun and something everyone should do at least once. The fact that it was the first time for some of them gave them a new experience. I loved seeing Manon and Corey win. It was great to see them rise to the challenge. 

[rockdog]

🙄 Here we are with multiple threads on why the sport is going nowhere with no sponsors/support/money and at the first sign of being bold and trying something different some of us don't like it.

[vtmecheng]

24 minutes ago, rockdog said:

🙄 Here we are with multiple threads on why the sport is going nowhere with no sponsors/support/money and at the first sign of being bold and trying something different some of us don't like it.

My intuition is not to say the sport sucks or that they shouldn’t try new things. It’s good that they are trying new things. That doesn’t mean we will all like every new idea. For me, poor lighting was not good. Maybe the night thing would work better if there were more lights. I don’t get why we have to love everything about the sport and can’t provide feedback on stuff like this. If the sport is going to get more viewers it will need to listen to open and honest opinions and not the “yes men” fanboys.

[foxriverat]

I thought night skiing looked awsome. I was at a graduation party, and my non skiing family thought it was pretty cool when I showed it to them.

[Drago]

1 hour ago, rockdog said:

🙄 Here we are with multiple threads on why the sport is going nowhere with no sponsors/support/money and at the first sign of being bold and trying something different some of us don't like it.

The Last Real US Open was in the dark. Several Big Dawgs were in the dark. It's not a new idea,  it's just not that great and super dangerous. I drove a night tournament and it was very sketchy. Personally, I’m all for challenging sites, but imho there's no way skiers pushing deep 41s should be skiing in the dark.

[chrislandy]

10 hours ago, vtmecheng said:

@DvarianDan Johnson I agree. It was a fun idea but ultimately lead to a situation that I can’t imagine a skier is going to train for. Also, it seems like a really unnecessary danger. Think of what would happen if a skier falls in a dark area. The boat would have a hell of a time  finding the skier. I was surprised that they didn’t put waterproof LEDs on the skier’s backs or something. It seemed like they hadn’t actually tried this before the event.

OWSC ran the 2023 mens open nations final at night last year and have run a few others so not the first they've organised or run a night comp at that lake.

I'd say it was as safe as could be made, the amount of prep time that went into it was tremendous, what wasn't shown was the evening before when they were up until about 1am sorting the lighting out. They put a couple of pro's in the boat and they drove the skiers path numerous times and spent hours adjusting the floodlights to minimise glare for the skier and driver. 

TWBC also had the drone following the skier and wherever they fell it hovered over them until they either swam to shore or were picked up by the boat. Once your eyes got used to it, you could see pretty well on site. I noticed looking back at the webcast yesterday that you couldn't see the buoys very well and they all looked the same colour, but that was an artifact of the cameras having the apertures full open, long shutter times and signal sensitivity/boost for the broadcast. You could see them pretty well, this was what it looked like in reality.

[OldboyII]

TGas was smart to wear sunglasses before start. It helps to accomodate eyes to low light conditions.

Vanishingly few places have opportunities for night skiing. nearly zero possibility to train regularly.

[Stevie Boy]

 

[NoahVieke]

As a few others have pointed out night skiing is hardly a “new” idea and I think the only thing that kept this event from having bigger scores was the fact that the water was really high causing some rollback.  Even the daytime scores were not what we are used to seeing.  
 

night finals used to be a staple at pro events and there were regularly big scores.  They would often run a head to head at night and still would regularly have guys run 3@41 (this is before 3@41 was like seeing a Honda driving around)  Going out for the first time at night is veerrrry different because you’re normal visuals aren’t there.  But usually after the first set things become more normal and actually doesn’t feel fast at all.  
 

I doubt it helped him any but Corey and I used to ski quite a bit under the lights at okeeheelee in 2010.  It’s a great feature the county offers that anyone can use (almost) anytime you’d like.  It’s something that all skiers should experience at least once but I would encourage more than once so you feel somewhat normal

[vtmecheng]

@chrislandy Thank you for the information on the site. From the video and the commentators, it sounded like there was much less light than you are saying. All I know is what the skiers were saying in interviews, which made it sound like there are definite dark areas and that would be the problem. The rollers from high water definitely did not create conditions for night skiing because rollers are incredibly hard to see with the lights. I know that there have been night events over the years and the ones I have seen on youtube looked more like what @NoahVieke posted. Maybe it's all just camera settings.

[Wish]

To me night skiing is for the live crowds, which used to be bigger. Was there a crowd?. Night skiing does not translate well via cameras plus webcasting. If the trend is more of a webcast viewership vs in person, maybe look to doing more head or parallel courses to spice things up. 
 

To comment above…Allie N needs to change nothing about her rate of speech. She’s ESPN quality in her comfort, articulation and quick wittedness on the mic in my humble opinion. Only equivalent is Freddy Kruger.

also feel rough water played the largest factor in low scores including during the daylight hours. 
 

TWBC knocked it out of the park..again.