Results: Qualifying - Val di Sole World Cup DH 2019

 9th overall in 2018

 It tells you that it rained between juniors and men's qualy

 @steve-815: does anyone know what happened?? was there a tsunami??? is danny ok.......

 @dannyfitton601: yes danny you are ok. Noah put everyone in his ark, everything is gonna be alright, don't worry.

 Rain...!

 Read the paragraph above the results...

 What does F1 do about rain? More importantly, what does WRC do about it?

 I suppose they could hold the championship in selected mega shopping centres down escalators to avoid getting wet?

 @tobiusmaximum: F1 does safetycar for everything which could make it look like real racing nowadays!!!

 In F1 all cars are on track simultaniously and quali laps can be re-run as many times as you like within a time window. So you very very rarely have the top guys getting their races ruined by weather the other drivers dont have to deal with.
Im not sure what the solution could be in DH but when a large %of races are won by mid pack randoms whenever it rains it damages the sport. Its not like they havent been predicting rain in VdS all week and they know roughly what time the rain tends to arrive. Would it be that hard to push things forward or back a few hours. It wouldnt be 100% foolproof but id bet they could make race conditions a lot more consitant with something along those lines.

 i also miss the good old days when we could control the weather...

 @gabriel-mission9: the only WC that Lord Robert of Warner won was because of mid race rain wasn’t it?

 Dont get me wrong the occasional wet race keeps things interesting. (The important word being "occasional") but seeing the track get rapidly worse over the course of the race and some rider who should arguably be coming in 40th sitting on the hot seat all day is not a good thing when it happens multiple times per season.

 @tobiusmaximum: it may have been. Im not sure what that proves.

 @gabriel-mission9: so let’s say the rain is ‘mid race’ both days. rider x quailes before the rain and rider z after the rain. Rider x sets a faster time. Meaning they are setting off later on race day, after the mid-race rain has thrown down again. In this scenario, where is the obvious advantage?

 @gabriel-mission9: it doesn’t prove anything, but would you theoretically strip him of that glory?

 In that extremely specific and million to one example, the advantage lies with the fastest rider who get to ride the dry track on race day. The rider capable of riding the track fastest in equal conditions (ie the rider whi deserves to win the race) likely wont win. Im not suggesting that races should be held indoors or riders should be stripped of historic wins. Im suggesting the uci could make some effort to provide consistant course conditions for the 2-3 hours it takes to run each category. It wont be fool proof, there will still be "acts of god" adding a bit of drama, but if they know days in advance that heavy rain is likely to fall at around 3 in the afternoon or whatever. It cant be that difficult to have the elite mens (the most time consuming category) finish by 2. If they think itll rain at 11 run the elite men at 2. This would mean on average course conditons would be a bit more consistent. Elite women takes up much less time so is relatively easy to fit around predicted rain times.Knowing they need a 3 hour window for elite men, having a rough idea of when it is likely to rain days in advance and yet keeping start times absolutely rigid seems a bit lazy.

 The only race I can remember where this happened and someone lower down the pack took the win was Lourdes a couple of years ago. I recall another race where it rained mid way through (MSA maybe) and Gwinn put down an amazing run to take the win anyway, apart from those I can't remember it being an issue. Maybe someone will tell me otherwise.

 @gabriel-mission9: have you tried running a WC race? What are you going to do when the weather predictions change the day before? It all seems like a lot of trouble for what is, essentially, ‘part of’ the sport we do. I think what I’m struggling with is what you think the actual problem with weather is? (Ps. My scenario was specific but it was really to highlight that nobody can predict which way the card will fall, so there is no advantage to be maximised)

 @metaam: And how many times there was rain before the race and the track was drying out and top riders were in better conditions (Lourdes I think in 2016)

 @gabriel-mission9: how many races has rain resulted in mid pack randoms winning besides Lourdes 2017 with Fayolle. That one left a bad taste in many people's mouths because the dude wouldn't acknowledge he won because of the conditions and was not humble, whereas Mark Wallace when he got 2nd totally acknowledged the weather (even though he's a legit top 10 guy unlike Fayolle who is mid pack at best).

 @tobiusmaximum: i think it is pretty clear what i am suggesting and why. I think some sort of flexible timing built into the race would help avoid results exactly like the quali results above, which do not accurately reflect who the fastest rider is. Rain affecting play seems to be getting more common. Some sort of flexibility might help alleviate the issue. Im not saying it would fix everything in one fell swoop, nor am i saying the sport should be sanitised to the point of being boring. I get what you are saying about running a wc not being simple, but plenty of other sports have found workable systems to help mitigate the issue. I think the uci should look into similar workarounds. If you dont agree with me thats a'ok.

 @gabriel-mission9: yeah it’s all good. I just don’t think it would work in reality without causing even more fuss and controversy. Are we stopping runs when any rain at all is falling? Will we end up measuring the damp factor of the track before restarting? Are you prepared for a six hour men’s final? In my opinion, the luck of draw is a thing and the fastest rider is the rider who completes the course fastest when it’s time for them to race. Yes.. sometimes things don’t go your way. But we aren’t watching velodrome. Because velodrome ain’t as interesting

 @gramboh: gimme this fayolle not acknowledging his luck i wanna see it thanks in advance

 @tobiusmaximum: ???? we definitely agree on the velodrome thing!

 @tobiusmaximum: hmm. Dunno why that came out as a string of ?'s. It was supposed to be a laughing face.