It’s no secret that fluorinated ski wax is… not great. Head into any ski shop or ski tuning shed and you’ll see plenty of windows open with a nice big fan working hard to keep the chemicals out of everyone’s lungs. That’s not solely because of the wax (base cleaners can have plenty of gnarly chemicals in them as well), but it’s certainly not blameless.
Fluorinated waxes contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or “forever chemicals“, linked to a series of illnesses and health conditions. These forever chemicals have made their way into the environment surrounding many ski areas, including the water supply around Park City, leading to full blown bans in certain areas and competitions.
The International Ski Federation (FIS) has worked to ban the wax over the past several years, initially implementing partial bans and finally implementing a full ban at the start of this season (2023/24). Alpine skiing, freestyle, cross country skiing, snowboarding, etc, etc. Anything run by the FIS is now free of fluorinated wax.
Unfortunately, not everyone is always willing to follow the rules, and fluorinated wax is a higher performance product than none-fluorinated waxes. So the question of enforcement must be brought up. If teams are tuning their own skis, as they should be, it would be pretty difficult to ensure nobody was cheating.
As such, the FIS worked alongside scientific instrument manufacturer Bruker to develop an accurate and effective testing method. Now all major FIS events can get even closer to 100% fluorinated-free, and random testing can be carried out at the lower-level events to ensure those hoping to reach the top aren’t cheating.
If you’re wondering how exactly these tests are done, here’s a little video explaining the machine and the testing procedure:
Image Credit: Hrvatski skijaški timovi via YouTube