For skiers and snowboarders, speed has long depended on PFAS-based wax, made with the harmful “forever chemicals” found in household products and the environment. The International Ski and Snowboard Federation banned fluoros in 2023, making this year’s Winter Olympics the first fluoro-free games. In this Grist story, Joseph Winters and Tik Root examine the sport post-ban and explore why the transition hasn’t been easy for professional athletes.
Baucom experienced that growing awareness himself, first as a collegiate racer and, starting in the late aughts, as a professional cross-country ski tech. Talk of the health risks was swirling through his sport’s often cramped and poorly ventilated wax rooms, where techs heated fluoro wax and ironed it into ski bases, kicking vapors and particulates into the air along the way. Wearing a mask or cracking a window provided only so much protection.
Evidence of the risk mounted throughout the 2010s. One particularly alarming study from 2010 found that PFAS accumulated in the bodies of Scandinavian wax technicians, whose blood levels of the compound PFOA averaged 25 times higher than those of the general population.
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