FIS Equipment Rules Update: Wading Through All That's Been Said

So much has been said over the last week or so about the FIS equipment regulations that it seemed prudent to try to wrap it all up into one neat little bundle for you, rather than post a new thing every time someone mentioned it (which was exceedingly frequently).  So here you go:

Add Steven Nyman to the List Of Famous (Or At Least Semi-Famous) Skiers Who Don't Like The Idea of 40-m GS Skis.  A great write-up there by Mr. Nyman, and some classic videos to go with it.  Ted Ligety also blogged again with a renewed furor.  He makes some good points, like the fact that in the course of studying the injuries at the highest level of the sport, nobody got input from the actual people skiing at the highest level of the sport.  Doesn't that seem like it would have been an obvious step?

Even the New York Times has covered the story, and they did a great job with quotes from Riml and a number of other ski world rando's.

Veteran racer and Austrian-turned-Bulgarian Kilian Albrecht has taken advantage of his position as Chairman of the FIS Athletes Commission to try and make a statement that reflects what we're all feeling: The new equipment rules are dumb and we don't favor them.  Though many celebrated last week when the FIS "relented" and knocked the radius requirement back from 40m to 35m (30m for women), it's still ridiculous because, basically, skiing on 35m skis is not that different from skiing on 40m skis. 

Albrecht's statement has the dramatic title of "Ignored" and features a pretty well put together graphic of many top athletes on the podium with orange tape photoshopped over their mouths.

Read the statement here.
View the list of signing athletes here.

Also on display is a list of athletes who have signed off in agreement with the posted statement.  All kinds of names there, from Shiffrin to Ligety, Goldberg to Riesch.  Notably absent is Lindsey Vonn, and most of the Austrian men's A-squad: Benni Raich, Romed Baumann, Hannes Reichelt, Mario Scheiber, etc.  The signatures of these skiers surely count for more than, say, Robby Kelley (no offense Robby), and it does make you wonder what's holding them back.  Maybe they're psyched about it?

Warner Nickerson got some great video of what his skiing looks like on 40-meter GS skis.  It looks alright for the most part, until he gets just a little bit out of position coming over the roll:


Warner did a good write up on his blog, one of the best statements we've seen about the new equipment.

Also, does anyone know who Brennum Rutsche is?  He's listed as signing the petition and representing the USA, although FIS has no record of such a person.  Maybe Brennan Rubie was the victim of a data entry error?

We'd love to have you comment here on this site because, well, that's what we're going for in the long run.  However, if you really want to be part of the conversation on this, or just get the full measure of what's being said about the rule changes, you should just follow this thread of Facebook.


Alright, that's about enough complaining, don't you think?  Now the question is what's next?  Do we wait and see what the FIS says in the next couple of weeks?  Or is there real action we can take now?

Anyone?


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