Wouldn't it be great if every course was set up perfectly to match whatever the turn radius of our skiis? It would be good if you could just carve your turn from edge to edge, and cross the finish line as fast as possible Then what would separate faster skiers from slower skiers is the ability to get on edge as quickly as possible and maintain that skill through the course, regardless of conditions. It would sort of be the same thing as putting everyone on the same ski and telling them to get to the bottom of the hill as fast as possible, requiring that they make a certain amount of turns. But that isn't the reality in ski racing. A master's racer is most likely going to be faced with a course that has a rhythm where the turns have a different turn radius than the skis that they are skiing on. For example, a FIS GS ski might have a turn radius of 23 m, but in a course the turns might have a 19m radius. What do you do then? If that is the case then you will not have the time to ride out the arc of your 23 m radius ski. This means you will probably have to shorten one of the three phases of your turn. To decide which one, probably depends on the following factors: What speed your are comfortable with, course set, your technical skills, and terrain conditions.
The world cup style of handling this type of situation is either one of two approaches depending on the position of the approaching gate: They either pivot the top of the turn and point their skis in the desired direction, and then hook up the bottom half of the turn. Or the other approach is to slide the top of the turn, until the skis are pointed in the desired direction, then once this occurs they engage the edge to finish off the turn.
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