With the Alpine Skiing World Championships underway in Garmisch, the International Ski Federation (FIS) have chosen to update media on their long-term plans to improve safety for racers on the slopes.
In particular this time the FIS's Injury Surveillance System (ISS) which launched five years ago in January 2006, has reported on a research project that remains in progress under the direction of the University of Salzburg.
This research has involved interviewing 63 World Cup experts last season, which identified five main injury risk factors for Alpine ski racing. The current project is focused on three of the five: course setting/speed, snow conditions and equipment (combination of ski, binding, plate and boot).
The FIS report that to assess course setting and snow conditions, specific bio-mechanical measurements have been conducted at ten Audi FIS Ski World Cup events so far.
Test racers equipped with sensors and GPS devices have evaluated course setting's impact on speed, energy and forces affecting the athletes. In addition, the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) from Davos have been measuring snow conditions along the race courses to assess their impact on speed and the various forces impacting the racers.
At the the same time as all this on-course testing has been going on, an equipment-testing project involving development of special ski prototypes is underway through the support of the ski manufacturers.
FIS, the ski industry and the University of Salzburg defined the specifications last summer and a number of prototype skis have been built for downhill and giant slalom. Recently retired World Cup racers have started testing these prototypes this season.
"The goal of producing these prototypes was, first of all, to gain more safety. The ski industry is ready to invest in the safety of the athletes. A key problem seems to be the combination of aggressive snow and aggressive skiing. To make the skis less aggressive, the new prototypes are experimental in terms of radius, length, standing height and ski plates," noted Dr Michael Schineis, Chairman of the Ski Racing Suppliers' (SRS) Association.
"This is a very interesting project. Due to the geometrical changes, these prototype skis were clearly different to ski on and require changes to the ski technique. But they are definitely skiable. Although there still needs to be more testing, I am very optimistic about the direction this is taking," said Austria's Peter Struger, one of the former racers testing the prototypes.
Atle Skaardal, FIS Chief Race Director for ladies' Alpine Skiing commented, "The bottom line is that Alpine ski racing involves speed and courage, therefore also some residual risk. However, we are doing our utmost to create the safest possible frames for our sport and the current projects are a strong demonstration of hard work in many different key areas. They are all designed to provide clear information for adapting new rules and procedures in order to avoid as many injuries as possible in the future."