Just sayin' - This may be the best year for men's SL on the WC in many years. The level of technical skiing is exceptional. While Hirscher and the Austrians may be struggling at the moment, the skiing by the Germans is excellent with Neureuther, Dopfer, and now Strasser at the top. The Italians are led by Gross and a resurgent Razzoli and Thaler. The Swedes have Hargin, Larsson, and Myhrer.
Khoroshilov from Russia has been in the top 10 every race this year. His win at Schladming may have been the 2 best SL runs of the past 10 years in terms of technical execution. I have NEVER seen fore/aft balance like that, textbook in nearly every turn of both runs.
But for me the biggest development in the front of the field is execution of the Essentials: especially CA and CB. The amount of CA these skiers are bringing is huge, especially holding the extreme CA right through release. This has brought a level of consistency of execution not seen before.
So go to You Tube, download the videos and do some frame by frame and see how all the Essentials are executed all of the time by some of the best skiers.
As a final note: GS, well not so much. Great skiers hobbled by awful skis. It's hard to look world class when you are forced to use 30 year old ski technology.....