“Our FIS Race Directors and staff on the World Cup circuit, all of whom are highly experienced skiing professionals, do ongoing, daily work to ensure and further improve safety during the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup competitions," FIS President Gian Franco Kasper acknowledged on Friday. "All our competitions are staged following precise procedures and safety guidelines, where the teams and their doctors are also directly involved. Safety of the athletes is and remains the FIS’s foremost concern."
Among the recent injuries on the World Cup circuit, American ski racer T.J. Lanning of Park City, Utah fractured a vertebra in his neck and Canadian John Kucera of Calgary, Alberta broke his left tibia and fibula, both at the World Cup's stop in Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada late last month.
Three seasons ago, FIS set up the FIS Injury Surveillance System (FIS ISS) to systematically collect facts and figures on injuries that happen to elite athletes across all skiing and snowboarding disciplines.
FIS, however, reports that the reasons for the latest accidents appear to be quite varied. The organization "has called a meeting with all the coaches, athletes and other involved parties to identify commonalities and to seek practical solutions to this problem that has made us very worried,” Kasper said.
Günter Hujara, FIS Chief Race Director, Alpine men, added, “The great number of injuries to the World Cup athletes at the beginning of the season concerns FIS very much. The entire FIS team is spending a lot of time discussing this. We have also asked other people to share their knowledge on this topic, together at a table, in order for us to be able to try to prevent further injuries. We are in contact with scientists we know to explore possible answers and to help make appropriate changes in our rules. The Coaches’ Working Group will also get together to discuss concrete suggestions shortly.
"Unfortunately, the recent accidents all have different injury patterns, and no pattern resembles exactly another. This makes it difficult for us to find solutions, and there will be no single answer to fix everything.
"We at FIS encourage everyone, all our partners and other related parties, to put the facts on the table and to discuss this concern constructively and from a practical perspective. FIS is anxious to implement useful changes. A meeting with the Athletes’ Working Group is already set for next week in Val Gardena/Gröden (Italy).”
“Unfortunately, it is a fact that ski racing is a risky sport and we will never have zero injuries," added Atle Skaardal, FIS Chief Race Director, Alpine ladies.
Over the past three years the FIS ISS has clarified the number of injuries across all FIS disciplines and distinguished the severe injuries from the minor ones in terms of their frequency and type. Now the research team is taking the next step to identify why and when exactly these severe injuries, especially on the knee, happen, such as during the fall, at impact on the ground, at impact with safety installation or gate, etc. The study also evaluates the circumstances of injury, the skiing situation, skier behavior/technique, equipment, skiing conditions, as well as joint angles and body position of the limbs.
As a result, FIS has already made some amendments to the equipment rules and have begun reviewing them again to examine possibilities to improve the safety of the equipment used at the World Cup level. Short-term suggestions are expected to be presented to the FIS Congress in May.
