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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David Dodge Hopes to Set FIS Straight

Diagram taken from this other website, which in turn took it from somewhere else.

We don't click over to skiracing.com very often because, well, it's the principle of the thing.  But recently, David Dodge had a very interesting letter published there in which he used a lot of pretty convincing language and terminology to basically call out the FIS ski length study on its lack of scientific rigor.  To be completely honest, we don't totally grasp all the details of what he's written, but it does sound good and the concept seems to make sense.  We augmented the reading with a little Googling and found this pretty handy piece of literature for those of you (us included) that might need a little help with some of the concepts.  As skiers, this is really stuff that we should all know, so take some time to read through all of it and study the diagram so you remember it.

Also, go read David Dodge's letter, and make sure you check out the comments section as well.  There are some interesting insights in there.

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You Can Relax Now: Your Points Won't Change

Did you know that FIS recently changed the way that your points are calculated from season-to-season?  Me neither.  It's true.  Jeff Weinmann, the rules guru at USSA, recently enlightened everybody:

Many of you many not know that FIS changed the way that FIS points are calculated this past Spring.

Like USSA, FIS results are now used in points calculations only during the season in which they were earned - it is no longer on a rolling 14 month calendar. FIS now calculates Base List (BL) points, much like the USSA Fall list (which is really a Summer list now).

Again, like USSA, BL points are valid the entire season until an athlete earns a better average of two individual results. If an athlete has one result that is better than the BL and one that is higher, if the average of those two results is higher than the BL points, the BL points remain. An important distinction is that a result does not have to be better than your BL points to be considered a result.

The only time that a single result will be averaged with BL points is if that single result is lower than the BL points and there are no other results during the season that could be averaged.

A few examples:

An athlete with BL points of 123.45 gets a result of 89.01 and has no other results at all in the season in that discipline higher or lower than the BL points - the average of the BL and that one result make up the new seed points of 106.23.

If that same athlete with BL points of 123.45 and the one result of 89.01 had a second result that was higher than 157.89 (resulting in an average higher than the BL points) the BL points would be the current points.

If that same athlete with BL points of 123.45 and the one result of 89.01 had a second result that was lower than 157.89 (resulting in an average lower than the BL points) that new average would be the current points.

The applicable section of the FIS Rules of the Points is attached for your review.

So there it is.  You can now go an entire season without scoring, and the clock will not be ticking... until the start of the next season.  So go ahead, DNF.  Or hike and score a 700.  Either way, you're good.


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Pushing Buttons: Breaking FIS "rules" About Social Media

This Fall, the "FIS Council" met to discuss a few agenda items, chief among them were the new equipment rules and "Improper Behavior."  The definition of the latter is as follows:

The Council agreed to develop a “Code” to deal with cases of improper behaviour that fall outside the competence of the competition jury to augment the existing rules, such as blasphemy on social networking sites or bringing the sport into disrepute.

So, before we start, let's clarify one thing:  FIS is neither God, sacred, nor inviolable, and therefore, by definition, cannot be blasphemed against. Although many of the higher-ups within FIS qualify as ESL, you would think that they might have taken the time to re-translate their document into more suitable language.  Ironically, by equating their fallible organization with an infallible God, they have, indeed, blasphemed before any of us even had the chance.

Ahem.

There have been a couple of close calls with this social networking thing lately.  First and foremost we have Frenchman Johan Clarey who was, quite surprisingly, leading the DH race in Val Gardena yesterday, with countryman Adrien Theaux sitting in 2nd place, when the decision came down from on high to cancel the race due to high winds.  Clarey was not happy and immediately launched his Twittership into the Twitterverse with this gem:

Translated:
Thank you FIS !!!! But next time tell us, we will bring the lubricant...

Ahem, indeed.

A short while later, he jumped back on his iMac (I'm guessing) and followed up with:

Perhaps, but from what we've heard it was legitimately pretty windy.  We're glad to get a snapshot of this kind of thing straight from the athlete, and we'd prefer to hear that kind of real emotion over the clean cut and buffed out versions we tend to get from a Lindsey Vonn or Benni Raich.  Is there anything wrong with truth?  Why shouldn't athletes be allowed to speak their minds?

Which brings us to our next case: Dustin Cook.  Along with Tucker Marshall, Dustin was DQ'ed at the second Nor-Am GS in Panorama for missing his start.  These guys are both veterans and should obviously know better, but we'll get to that in a second.  After the race, Dustin may have made some comments on Twitter that were not favorable in the eyes of the jury.  All that he has left there now is this:

We don't see anything objectionable about that Tweet, but it's possible that he took some others down.  Why would he do that?  Because word is that he's now in hot water with Alpine Canada over the whole ordeal.  Alpine Canada does not have a specific social media policy that we can find, but I think we've established pretty firmly that governing bodies only play by the letter of the law when it suits them.

Why DQ someone for missing their start?  Because it says you can do that in the rule book (613.6), even though it's no benefit to the athlete whatsoever and objectively makes no sense.  Why sanction someone for Tweeting about your bad decisions?  Because, as a governing body, you are an authoritarian regime that does not answer to your membership and is in no way compelled to represent the membership as the members see fit (Quite the opposite, in fact.  The paradigm is such that the membership represents the regime, so the regime better like what you're doing, or else...).  For the record, it should be obvious that this commentary is not directed solely at Alpine Canada (We have no beef with you, Canada.  We like your hats toques).

Which brings up one final point.  Let's all remember the job of the officials at a ski race: To hold a fair race.  Not to enforce every single rule, although that is the prerogative of the TD, but to simply have the race and make sure that it is as normal and fair as possible.  Would allowing these two guys to start have been unfair?  Absolutely not.  Too often, these sorts of situations arise from poor officiating.

RACE OFFICIALS:  Let's remember that, with the exception of the TD, who is essentially there to represent the interests of FIS, we are there to make the race happen for the athletes.  Not to stop them from racing because the rule book says we can.  Do everything you can to get every skier down the hill, and only make exceptions if doing so will provide someone an unfair advantage.

REFEREES:  The TD represents FIS and the rule book.  The Chief of Race represents the venue and organizers.  You represent the other third of the equation: The athletes.  Even if the TD and start ref (not on the jury, btw) say it's an obvious DQ, you should be advocating for the athlete if an unfair advantage will not be given.  Find out what happened and, yes, sometimes you have to make your case to the TD.  Your job is to advocate for the athlete in line with the rules of a fair race.

Ahem.  Indeed.  Are we all still friends?


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Petition to FIS So They Know How You Feel

Ryan Shorter, Wenatchee's finest, started a petition late last summer in an effort to give people an avenue to express, as a group, their feelings on the new ski length rules being implemented by FIS.  That petition has now reached a little over 1,000 signatures, and it's time for Hard Snow readers to put it over the top.

Like the Occupy movement, the petition itself lacks concrete demands and is an expression of "I think these rules are bullshit," more than anything else.  Because it doesn't ask for a concrete change or outright striking of the new rules, it's hard to say what the petition will accomplish, but it's probably still worth taking a second to go over there and sign it.  If nothing else, it could be a show of force to FIS that we, the proletariat, aren't that psyched.

Take a minute to go over and sign.  Warner did, Brennan Rubie did, and a thousand other people did too.  If you pay for a FIS license, or know someone who does, now is the time.


Anita Wachter photo courtesy of Japan.


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Ski Racing Makes the New York Times

Giant Slalom Racers Object to a Mandate on New Equipment ::: NEW YORK TIMES

These days, as the whole ski length debate takes place, and elicits with it a larger conversation about free speech, social media, and the role of governing bodies, we find ourselves at a defining moment for our sport.  So it's nice that one of the world's most widely read media outlets is giving the whole thing some coverage.  Read the story here.  What's the next step?

Happy thanksgiving, let's continue the conversation.

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Newsflash: FIS Under Even Stronger Pressure to Forego Significant Ski Changes

In an email to a handful of head coaches, program directors, and other assorted people this morning, Patrick Riml announced that everyone except FIS is on the same page about what should and shouldn't happen with equipment regulations.  Since the email has since been forwarded to any number of people, we felt comfortable copying the contents of it here:

Ladies & Gentleman,

Hope things are going well. 

I would like to give you an update on the equipment situation after the FIS meetings and more discussions in Soelden.

SRS, Athlete's and the coaches working groups are working together and are all on the same page and will propose only to change the wight [sic] of the ski in general without changing the radius since there is not enough data to guarantee bigger radius will reduce injuries.

The length of women DH skis will also be discussed because of a possible dis-advantage for smaller athletes.

The companies also feel comfortable if this will be approved to produce enough skis to support all continental Cup skier.

The council meeting on november 6th and 7th should give us the direction going forward.

PLease let me know if you have any questions.

Patrick

So there you go.  We're disappointed because the photoshop project we'd been working on, picturing Paerson vs. Hujara in a cage match, might be all for naught.  On the other hand, we're happy that we might not have to go back to 1997.  We say "might" because you'll notice that Riml only mentions the SRS (ski manufacturers), the athlete's (represented by Killian Albrecht), and the coaches working group as being on the same page, but he makes no mention of the people who actually decide what does and does not go in the rule book.  Perhaps we'll know more after the "council meeting" (whatever council he might be referring to), but as of now, things are still in the "will be discussed" state.

In related news, we got an email from a friend who said that during the meeting in Soelden, "Cuche asked all the skiers to raise their hand, then asked 'Benni? Where's Benni? Austria?' Turns out, they weren't allowed to come, robots can't have feelings."  Which is funny, especially given that, as another reader pointed out to us, both Benni and Marlies Schild had posted links to "Keep the Arc in FIS Skiing" on their Facebook pages a while back, but then swiftly and silently removed all mention of ski lengths and radius from Facebook and fansites.  Turns out, their fan clubs run their Facebook pages, and they posted the links after making the logical assumption that any reasonable ski racer would be against such regulations.  Clearly though, somebody in the Austrian federation must have sent out the memo to shut it down and just get back in line.

So, ladies and gentleman, that's the memo from the boss.

UPDATE:  Randomly came across this blog posting from the athletes union.  Had to laugh when I read the statements from Atomic at the bottom, especially in light of the Austrian situation mentioned above.  Best line:

“Studies by the Salzburg University have shown that the centrifugal forces in turns are lowered by the new material. Therefore, we hope for increased safety,” he said.

"New material"?  Do you mean "Gigantic skis"?  Also, just so we're all clear, lower centrifugal forces means that you're actually sucking more.

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Weekend Roundup: Great Racing, Paerson Flexes on FIS

Dustin Cook shows you how to get it on edge in Soelden.  Photo from Twitter.

As we wrap up the first weekend of Northern Hemisphere racing for the 2012 season, here's hoping things stay this interesting all year long.  Yes, the racing was good (Vonn: 1, Mancuso: 10 on Saturday.  Ligety: 1, Miller: 9 on Saturday.  Nickerson, Jitloff, and Biesemeyer pretty close to the flip.  And holy JP Roy!  Definitely the performance of the weekend moving from 53 to 22 overall, 2nd place on the second run).

But the real action was on Friday at the meeting between the FIS and their most elite members - the World Cup men and women.  The meeting went for over 2 hours, and eventually Didier Cuche led the charge, asking all the athletes in attendance to stand together, literally to stand up, which they all did for the last hour.  They did not sit down.  There were some great quotes from Bode, who is sort of the pre-eminent philosopher in the group, and the athletes pretty much put the hammer down on the nerds sitting at the front of the room.  The best moment by far came from Anja Paerson, who gathered up Svindal and Lara Gut to make her point.  As described at skiracing.com:

...the meeting came to a dramatic climax when Swedish World Cup star Anja Paerson had six-foot-three-inch Svindal stand next to five-foot-three-inch Swiss standout Lara Gut. “So you are saying that the research done for Aksel is good to use for Lara,” said Paerson after confirming with the researchers that the vast majority of the tests had been conducted with male subjects.

After a long, silent pause while FIS officials played hot potato with the microphone, Paerson answered her own question. “So men are the priority of the World Cup.”

That article is well worth reading.  It gives you a sense of how displeased the athletes are with this at the highest levels,  and it really exemplifies the kinds of shortcomings that ski racing leadership is showing, almost across the board, at the moment.

Also, just a word of advice to Guenther Hujara:  We've been through this once before on this site, but the person who walks away from a wreck like this and wins a medal the next day is probably not a good person to piss off:



After the meeting, Paerson tweeted (translated from Twedish): "Politics, Anja put your foot down on the big meeting with the FIS. Patting myself on the shoulder and say good Anja good!"

So, Hujara et al, if you're sure you want to go through with this, she'll just be there in Sweden, washing her car.  But seriously, you guys should hit the gym first.

Thanks to Dustin Cook's Twitter for the opening pic.
Thanks to Ms. Paerson's Twitter from a few months ago for the other pic.


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Nazis Also Don't Like the New FIS Ski Regulations

Back in 2004, a movie came out in German about the last 10 days of Hitler's demonic life.  It was called "Der Untergang" ("The Downfall"), and it features one pivotal scene in which Hitler convenes a meeting about, er, something, and then throws a screaming fit and kicks everybody out.

That scene has become a great prop for one of the most enduring memes on the Internet today.

There was the time when Hitler teed off on Rebecca Black.  Or the time he found out that he didn't get in to Hogwarts.  Or that time he spazzed because there's no camera on the new iPod Touch.

Well, now some wonderful person has blessed us by recording exclusive video of Hitler's reaction to the new FIS ski length regulations.  He's not happy about it.

So even though we sort of resent the fact that this video sort of equates us, the pissing and moaning masses, with one of history's most evil and disgusting men, it's still worth a look.

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New Rules For Airlines Might Make Your Travel A Little Easier

From npr.org

There are some new rules put in place by the US Department of Transportation that may help you when travelling.  Check out the NPR coverage here to get the rundown on some of the changes and clarifications.  The major changes are mostly in regard to lost bags, canceled flights, and waiting times on the runway.  These are definitely things that will be good to know, as traveling in the Winter with tons of skis and gear is never easy.

The airlines aren't happy about it, saying that they should be left to themselves and let the market correct itself.  What they mean by that is that they should be left alone to to squeeze every last cent out of their passengers, so we're happy to have the Feds on our side on this one.  Still, air travel is getting more expensive at a rapid rate, and airlines are quickly tightening the strings on the rules for oversized and overweight baggage, and the folks at the counter who enforce those rules seem to be getting better and better at doing so.

Air travel costs seem to be spiraling out of control right now.  Where will they stop?


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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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A List Of Famous (Or At Least Semi-Famous) Skiers Who Don't Like The Idea of 40-m GS Skis

Ranked here in order of fame:

Bode Miller
Ted Ligety
Tessa Worley
Hans Olsson
Mari Marchand-Arvier
Mike Janyk
Warner Nickerson
Dustin Cook

Surely there are more?  Let us know who's missing.  Good quotes from Ted and Bode in this SkiRacing.com article.

Ted's blog is the most complete critique.  Hans' is the most sensible and adorable.  Warner's is the funniest and probably the best.  Dustin's is the most in-depth, and he responds to lots of comments on his blog.

What I like the most is what I saw from Hans.  He again used lots of exclamation points, and he summed it up nicely:

"I also want to add… I have never complained about the safety of the skiers, I think its up to the skier him self to make it safe. If you find the speed to high, the jumps to big, the turns to heavy… well stay at home or go slower! Ski racing is a extreme sport & I like it that way!"

There must be more.  Who else?

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New FIS Ski Lengths: Stupidity Reigns. What's the Point?

Let's all enjoy some 40-meter radius GS skis!  And DH stackheights circa 1986.

As most of you have heard, these are the changes that FIS is set to make for ski dimensions over the next few years.  It's befuddling, to put it mildly.  Stupid, to say it factually.  At the very least, it's completely misguided.  It even defies discussion to a great extent.  Really, what is there to say?  It just leaves us sitting, wondering, "What?  Why?"

Who wants this?  Who asked for this?  Nobody.  The explanation for the new regulations lies with the desire of FIS to be progressive in its protection of athletes, and because they want to do what they can to avoid being responsible for some hypothetical pandemic of injuries.  That's the European way.

Car racing, sailboat racing, bicycle racing: they all have heavily regulated equipment specifications, all top-down regulations in the name of safety and fair play.  Car racing has huge safety concerns because of the incredible speeds and the proximity of spectators to the competition.  Sailboat racing has all manner of different classes and categories to keep it fair and to keep participants from being priced out of competition.  Bicycle racing has vestigial safety concerns, left over from an era when the desire to develop superlight alloy components outstripped manufacturers’ ability to make those components strong enough to be considered safe.  When your average speed over the ground is upwards of 150 miles an hour, or when the price of a junior racing boat could range into six figures, or when a broken wheel or bike frame can endanger the health and well-being of hundreds of athletes at once, you have a problem on your hands.

Ski racing does not face those kinds of equipment concerns, at least not with regard to safety (cost is a different issue.)  The new FIS regulations amount to a statement that skis, as we use them now, are dangerous.  Paradoxically, we already know this to be both true and untrue.  Is skiing dangerous?  Yes.  Is skiing too dangerous?  No.

Many people do consider speed events to be too dangerous, especially for certain ages and abilities.  But I doubt very much that those people would ascribe that “too dangerous” label to anything equipment related.  Why is Downhill dangerous?  Make a top-10 list and see if standheight or ski width makes the cut, or even factors into the discussion.  But FIS, in the classical European Big Brother way, claims to know something we don’t.  They say they have data that proves that ski lengths, widths, and standheights are leading us through an injury epidemic, although nobody on this side of the curtain seems to have ever seen any such data.  We know what we see everyday, and we assume a pretty well established level of risk when we ski.  Sometimes we pay the price, but it is a rare person for whom that risk is too great.

This entire subject raises a question that we are facing as a national ski racing community: What can you do about it?  The answer is, unfortunately, probably nothing.  FIS probably doesn’t care what you have to say, and it’s not like we’re going to stop showing up to races just because we don’t like the skis.  Right?

Well, maybe.  You have to think that if FIS gets enough feedback from enough of us, something might change.  The manufacturers have raised their voices already, and certainly there are rumblings of discontent from those on the ground, but will FIS listen?  History suggests that sports governing bodies, maintaining the monopolies that they do, are not inclined to proceed with anything but their own agenda, a concept that is entirely un-American but holds true even (especially?) in this country.  You have no congressman to write to, no representative to call.  What will you do?

And yes, we will continue to show up.  The length of the skis may drive a few people out of the sport because, let’s face it, it won’t feel as good.  But really, the things that will drive people away from the sport are things like the incredibly high financial cost, not the buzz you're missing as you hammer the apex.

Here are some questions that we would have preferred FIS answer instead:

1. Are ski dimensions really the safety agenda item causing us the most harm?  Is that what makes this sport dangerous?
2. What will FIS do to address the rising cost of involvement in our sport?  Many individuals have already been priced out of competition, and even more are sure to come in the future, and yet FIS has done nothing to mitigate these costs.
3. What about helmet design?  You don’t see these guys rocking open-face helmets with a half-inch of padding (watch the whole video, it is time well spent.)  FIS doesn’t see this as a problem.  Their logic is that a head injury is caused by a fall, which is caused by ski dimensions.  The truth is that a head injury is caused by too hard of an impact with the ground, which needs to be directly mitigated by a more adequate helmet.
4. What about venue protection and safety?  Is b-net really the best answer that we can come up with?  Not only does it barely contain many crashes, but it’s also decimating ski club budgets left and right, and the manpower involved in setting up a safe venue is preventing many of the best locations from hosting as many races as they might want to.  FIS has failed, utterly, to address this.
5. How about actual binding safety testing and regulations?  DIN settings are supposed to be standard across brands, but anyone who has worked with the different platforms available knows that they aren’t the same.  A Marker set on 14 is not the same as an Atomic set on 14, which is not the same as a Look 14, which is not the same as a Tyrolia 14.  Couldn’t we just as easily blame our safety troubles on bindings?

These new regulations are ridiculous and completely arcane.  Frankly, they do nothing to address the real safety issues that we face in our sport.  It’s 2011.  Neither binding nor helmet technology in our sport have really evolved at all in about 30 years, and fencing has only evolved into "bigger and more."  But FIS says that longer, less responsive, more ungainly skis are the answer.  It’s a shame that they have wasted so much time and energy on this project when, in fact, we have much bigger concerns that have gone completely unaddressed. 

How to make this point to FIS?  We’d like to hear your suggestions in the comments.

In the meantime, pop on over to Facebook and hang around with this group, though you’ll have a tough time with anonymity, if that matters to you.

Also, here’s the protest letter from the ski manufacturers.  It’s signed by Michael Schineis (sorry, that’s DR. Michael Schineis), president of Atomic Austria and president of Winter Sports Equipment at AmerSports, which also controls Salomon.  Also signed by Franz Foettinger (CEO of Fischer), Klaus Hotter (executive VP of winter sports at Head), Jonathan Wiant (Managing director at Völkl/Marker), Reto Rindlisbacher (Managing director at Nordica, formerly at Völkl), Bruno Cercley (CEO of Rossignol), and Beni Stöckli (CEO of, you guessed it, Stöckli).  The scribes appear to have misspelled Stöckli’s name on the letter.

In the letter, they say that a GS ski with a 40-meter radius “is bringing the GS skis twenty years back.”  They suggest a 35-meter radius, “Given the limited impact of the difference between 35m and 40m shown in the tests,” which also suggests that the manufacturers have seen the data that we have not.  And they state, rightly so, that “equipment specifications are by far not the most relevant factor in connection with safety… The ski manufacturers note with regret that…so far at least, no other concrete measures seem to be forthcoming.”

Enjoy the letter below, or you can download it here.  You can download the above equipment spec sheet here.

And seriously, don't shortchange yourself on this caliber of sporting entertainment:

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Swiss Men's Team Goes Go-Karting. Obession With Rules Continues.

In America, when we want to let loose and have a good time, we have things like bumper cars and demolition derbies.  In Switzerland, they write CAS arbitration laws and procedures.

So we had to laugh when we read the article on fisalpine.com about the Swiss men's team going out for a day of go-karting.  The regulations and delineations are comically staggering:  "Training groups 2 and 4," qualifying rounds, starting orders, calculated results, and of course, a points system that probably has its own rule book.  Also, because the order in which you cross the finish line might not tell the whole story in a go-kart race, they held a time trial afterward and somehow scored that with the main event to determine the final winner:  Beat Feuz by a whopping 38 points.  Disappointment of the day surely goes to Daniel Albrecht, who had just 4 points.  4 points?!  I mean REALLY.

By the looks of the full-face helmets and fire suits, these go-karts might not have been your average mini-golf/batting cages/bumper boats setup.  Although they do appear to be smash-ready with the 360° bumper skirts, ramming speed doesn't appear to have been a big part of the racing.


Photo copyright Swiss Ski.  You can see it at fisalpine.com.

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A Note on Straddling

Everyone:  Stop straddling in slalom.  Simple.  You know when you do it, and if you don't turn yourself in you are failing.  Boot topping is one thing.  Straddling is another.  It's almost always the same people, just like it's always the same people breaking tips on SL skis and bending instep buckles.  Stop it.  Stop pinching the line.  Give yourself more room above the gate and bring some shape to the gate.

Incorrect:

Coaches from other teams shouldn't feel obligated to video you because they think you're going to straddle and not turn yourself in.  Contrary to popular myth, there is no rule about disqualifying yourself, so if you straddle, stop being such a crybaby and get yourself on the DQ list at the end of the run.

Incorrect:

And even though the skier pictured above has been roundly criticized by his peers via Facebook, we still put this here as an example of what not to do.  Straddling is a conversation that happens with yourself.  One of those moments in life where it's pretty likely that nobody will know the difference.  But if you just drive away after backing into another car in the Walmart parking lot at 3 AM on a Tuesday, you're still a douchebag.  Do the right thing.  Turn yourself in.

Incorrect (Note that most of the following offenders DID turn themselves in):

So now that we're all perfectly clear what it looks like, STOP DOING IT.  And if you do it, DQ yourself so that the angry mob doesn't despise you.