Deadline For Ski Length Rules Approaching?

If you're reading this blog and you don't know what this picture is all about, shame on you.

A little while back, Patrick Riml sent an email out to an apparently all-male group of coaches and administrators regarding the imminent equipment rule changes.  It encourages us all to suck it up and go with the flow.  Here's the full text:

Gentleman,

Can you please pass this on. 

We, as an organization have really tried hard to change the equipment specs proposed by FIS. We had meetings with our athlete's, invited Biomechanics and Sasha worked hard as a Chairman of the Men's working group to adjust the regulations.

The bottom line is that FIS has made up their minds about this and this is completely supported by the manufactures since this will help them safe money in the long run.

I did have several conversations with Head Racing Directors from Europe and the common argument is that currently the companies produce up to 15 different models of GS ski for the athlete's. 

The side cut's change every meter so they believe that the new regulations will help them safe money because the won't have to produce that many different model with different side cuts.

So there is no chance that the companies will say "no," they have agreed to this.

The other thing is that for example Julia Mancuso used "almost" next years skis at the WC GS in Aspen where she came third! The ski was 1 cm short in length of next years specs, what I have been told, and believe me, you could not tell a difference!

This whole process was very frustrating for all of us but at this point we do have to except the change and have to make sure to prepare our athletes accordingly.

I will try my best to get as many new skis as possible to the US and to hand down new ski's from our World Cup athlete's which they will not use so our development and domestic athlete have the new skis asap.

Please let me know if you have any further questions to this topic but I do believe it is time that everybody will focus on preparing our athlete's well and teach them the right things and not get caught up with things we cannot control anyway at this point.

Regards,

Patrick

So that pretty much lays to rest all hope that something might change; that we, the people supposedly served by the FIS, will have any say in this whatsoever.  The ski companies have agreed, the FIS has agreed, so it seems that ultimately it doesn't matter whether or not you/we agree: it's happening.

The one group of people with the power to change all this (maybe), is the World Cup skiers.  They are ostensibly in the process of organizing an athlete's union, although if the quality of their Twitter feed and the relative lack of action on their website is any indicator, things aren't looking too organized.  After all, the athletes are in season, and there's a good chance that nobody has the time to deal with this right now.  The timing of all this is a little like being fired on a Friday afternoon: You're already on your way out the door for the weekend, and there isn't really time to think about it because you've got other stuff going on.

What World Cup athletes can do, even without a real union, is to protest publicly at a race by refusing to start.  Something like that would probably work best at a popular World Cup GS like, say, Adelboden.  A sit-in at the start area, or better yet in the finish area, with a staunch refusal to race until FIS backs off the rules.  The athletes would need to have a number attached to this, say 30-meters for men and 27-meters for the ladies, because unlike the Occupy movement, the numbers here are concrete and central to the discussion.  Can they unite on this without an empowered union?  It would take some organizing behind the scenes from the top athletes, but it should be possible. Will it happen? That might be another story.

If something like this is going to happen, it needs to happen soon.  Because if they wait too long, all the manufacturers will already be re-tooled for 35-meter skis and then it really will be too late.  A true protest, if it's going to happen, needs to probably happen before February 1.  In essence, an action like this would be not only a statement against the new equipment rules, but it would be a statement against the way that ski federations, across the board, are run.

If it's not already, this matter may soon become a dead horse.  We hope it isn't, but at the risk of bloodying our favorite bat, it's worth pointing out that there are much bigger issues that FIS could be dealing with right now - both from a safety and a sporting perspective.  Let's talk about helmets, binding design and functionality, cuff heights*, or even the incredible rising costs of participation in our sport.  We don't need to invent some problem and hire some dweebs in Salzburg to make everything look legitimate; let's work on the things that are actually bothering us now.

Perhaps we should take a look at the absolutely heinous crashes that have marred DH racing, even in the post-Lanzinger era, and think about real solutions on that front.  More b-net is not the answer anymore.  Speed control, terrain considerations, and better helmets/body protection are.  FIS tried to fake us all out with a little "DH/SG" sticker on speed helmets this year, but the fact is that 99% of our helmets already passed that muster or were able to meet the criteria with very little improvement.  Great job keeping Ovo helmets off of FIS downhill tracks.  At what point will ski racing, like every other high-speed high-impact sport, figure out that the only real way to adequately protect a head and face is with a thicker helmet with facial protection?  Moto GP racers aren't riding open-faced.  Downhill mountain bike riders go slower than ski racers do and at least have a shot of landing on their feet, yet their helmets are twice the thickness and nobody in that sport would ride hard with an open-face helmet.  Meanwhile, FIS has banned the use of facial protection for anything but a slalom race.  Is that really working out for us?  Would Mr. Klotz not have been better off with a full-face helmet (watch the crash, and then notice the knee to the face in the slow-mo)?  What about Laurenne?  Not to get too obsessed with the helmet thing, the point here is that we have much greater concerns than ski length.

In an article on Deadspin about the Pittsburgh Steeler's linebacker James Harrison's dirty/illegal helmet-to-helmet hits, Josh Levin wrote this:

[NFL Commisioner] Roger Goodell wants us to think this angry, unapologetic, gun-toting jerk [James Harrison] is the reason pro football is, on occasion, violent and unsafe. But the uneasy reality is that James Harrison doesn't make the NFL dangerous. Football makes the NFL dangerous. And it's dangerous on every play, not just those infrequent instances when Harrison gives some quarterback's brain a bumper-car ride around his skull.

The same is true for us.  The bottom line is that ski racing is dangerous, and it's dangerous on every instance.  Ski lengths are not what makes ski racing dangerous.  Joe Racefan does not watch skiing and marvel at the ski lengths.  Joe Racefan watches and thinks, "Holy crap, these guys are nuking!  And flying through the air!  And they're basically naked!  And I can see how scared they are because their faces are completely uncovered!  And their skis are still attached even after they freaking eat it like there's no tomorrow!  Their faces get ground into the snow and ice while they're sliding after they've been knocked unconscious!"  And he's right.  These are the things that make our sport really dangerous, and these are the things we need to be fixing.


*Forgot to add this footnote in the original post:
I recently spoke with a leading ski physicist/engineer who told me that the huge spike in knee injuries didn't happen with the advent of shaped skis; it happened with the advent of tall plastic boots.  Hope to have more on that later.


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