Kid's racing skis

Annmarief

New member
Thank you for all of your previous suggestions regarding my children and their skis. However, I am now being told by ski instructors/coaches (no personal interest in selling skis) that they really need to go to racing skis. Which, honestly, I thought they were ready to switch to at the begining of the year but I had serious doubts that my largest of the three could ski a 120 and that was the smallest I was finding. I have a few questions. How long? My kids are SMALL. I know I would be looking for skis in the 100-120 range for the 3 of them. Any brand suggestions?

Thanks!
 
Length is generally a matter of each child's height (not necessarily so for adults). Also assuming they are at a skiing level for racing skis. You should be looking for mid-forehead in length as they stand in a ski shop in normal footwear (aka shoes). Very aggressive kids you might go just a touch longer (say an extra 5 cm).

Racing skis also come for Slalom and GS sized turns. You will most likely want GS (medium radius turns) skis.

A ton of possible brands out there (Volkl, elan, blizzard, atomic, rossignol, etc...). Don't go for too stiff a ski, especially for smaller kids (12 & under). Kids do not have enough body weight generally speaking to flex or bend the ski properly if it is very stiff (you can flex the skis with a hand in a ski shop to see how hard or easy to flex they are...). That said, racing skis are stiffer than recreational skis and one of the primary reasons your coach/instructor has probably recommended them. Just don't go so stiff that you can hardly bend the ski as an adult in the warm shop (and yes there are some like that put out by manufacturers - same story with kids racing boots, several of them out there are way too stiff for the kids that are attempting to use them).

Hope that helps, even if a bit late to your original post...
 
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