It is a survey that will cause noise in the Nordic ski industry. In its latest issue entitled “fear on the slopes”, the Explore Team, the digital platform for major reports from the newspaper L’Équipe, reveals a health scandal that has affected hundreds of people since the end of the 1980s.
According to journalists who investigated, the widespread use of products with a high concentration of fluorine, used for waxing cross-country skis due to their performance, is linked to the development of certain respiratory diseases and even cancers. This primarily concerns technicians on professional circuit races, but also in rental shops in resorts, who for years waxed skis in unventilated and unprotected workshops.
The International Ski Federation (FIS) will ban fluoride wax in its competitions, but “awareness is late“for journalist Aurélien Delfosse, who oversaw the survey for L’Equipe Explore and answered questions from France Bleu Pays de Savoie.
What do you take away from this long-term investigation?
Aurelien Delfosse : What surprises me is the slowness of the decision-making that will lead to the ban of this product. Our survey reveals that the alerts are fairly clear from the 90s. Studies have gradually been published on the dangerousness, and it takes almost thirty years of supposed links between the development of certain diseases and the activity of certain technicians to achieve this. ‘prohibition. And again, this ban which was planned for this year was postponed to a minimum of one year by the FIS.
What is the health impact in the French Nordic skiing environment?
Impossible to say. What is certain is that there are scientific studies which prove the dangerousness of these products, but at the end of the investigation we are only guessing. We cannot say how many people were victims. In Norway, on the other hand, real epidemiological studies have been carried out on the technicians who handle these products, and they know how to quantify the number of people who may have developed problems linked to fluoride waxing. In France unfortunately, we do not have this material. The French Ski Federation (FFS) has not carried out investigations to identify substances in the blood of its trainers.
What does the French Ski Federation respond to?
It must be recognized that the FFS has nevertheless taken this problem seriously. Technicians are now equipped with masks, instructions are given to reduce exposure to the product as much as possible. The Federation even has a wax truck equipped with vacuum cleaners and ventilation. But here, we are only talking about high-level sport. Every year, there are still a lot of amateurs who register for races like the Transjurassienne and who wax at home, sometimes using these products. They don’t necessarily have all the information. I think that the FFS should communicate more to the general public on the problems that these substances can pose.