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Bloomberg Businessweek / SEPTEMBER 2, 2019THE ELEMENTSPHOTOGRAPH BY EVAN ORTIZ FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEKa tighter chemical bond with carbon than any other, and it
creates, essentially, a shield against the ski-slowing moisture
that pervades snow most thoroughly when temperatures ap-
proach or rise above 32F. Fluorine is exquisitely unreactive; it
scarcely sticks to anything. That’s why PFOAs are a key ingre-
dient in Teflon. When firefighters spray foam laced with PFOAs
onto a blaze, it has a suffocating effect.
As you might have guessed, PFOAs are bad for the
environment. Numerous studies have noted contaminated
drinking water near airports because of the PFOA-laced fire-
fighting foam used to put out airplane fires. And in 2010, after
Sweden’s Vasaloppet, the world’s biggest Nordic ski contest,
with 30,000 entrants, scientists tested the snow and soil and
found them tainted with fluorocarbons, which have been
linked to cancer, liver damage, birth defects, hypertension,
and strokes.
In July 2020 the European Chemicals Agency will ban the
sale, manufacture, and import of all products containing
PFOAs. Slightly less toxic and less miraculous to skiers, with
a backbone containing just six fully fluorinated carbon mol-
ecules, C6 fluorocarbon seems poised to become illegal in
Europe in 2022. Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency is investigating numerous U.S. wax purveyors, includ-
ing Swix Sport USA, whose Norwegian parent company, Swix
Inc., makes about 60% of all fluoro ski wax worldwide.
Swix Sports USA denied a request to discuss the EPA’s
investigation; the EPA said in an emailed statement that certain
waxes are in violation of the Toxic Substances Control Act. The
agency wouldn’t comment on why some fluoro ski waxes are
still being sold in shops and online. “As a matter of policy,” it
said, “the agency is unable to discuss compliance monitoring.”
Speculation abounds among skiers that it’s just a matter
of time before the EPA outlaws fluoro wax. Since 2009, Swix
has been trying to find a more environmentally friendly wax
that’s as fast as fluoro. Fast Wax, based in Watertown, Minn., is
experimenting, too, and it plans to stop jostling for fluoro wax
market share. “Why fight for deck chairs on theTitanic?” says
owner Casey Kirt.
In fact, fluoro wax, which made its debut in the late ’80s, has
never really been a big moneymaker. It isn’t wildly popular with
the downhill skiing masses (over a quick three-minute schuss,
its benefits are scant), and it accounts for only about $50 million
in annual sales worldwide. Still, fluoro has long cast a troubling
haze over the few thousand cold-tolerant ectomorphs who hud-
dle at the core of the Nordic ski universe.
Patrick Weaver, the Nordic coach at the University of
Vermont, says that whenever he waxes with fluoro, he dons
rubber gloves and wears a $1,200 vacuum-pack face shield
replete with toxin-mitigating fans. “The stuff isn’t good for
our bodies,” Weaver says as we discuss a 2011 Scandinavian
finding that ski technicians had up to 45 times as much
fluorocarbon in their blood as nonskiers. “And for me, this
is a career.”
Thanks to Weaver, fluoro wax is now banned from most
Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association races. Many U.S.
high school leagues likewise allow only cheaper, slower
hydrocarbon-based wax, in part because pricey fluoro advan-
tages wealthier athletes. The bans are tough to enforce,
though, since there’s no inexpensive way to test whether a skiis fluorinated. Last year, after the Norwegian Ski Federation
banned fluoro from all races for kids 16 and younger, it paid
a lab about $6,000 to swab 48 skis, one each from 48 youth
racers. Twelve skis carried “strong indications” they’d been
treated with fluorine; 12 more carried “indications.” Do these
results mean that Norwegian children are disproportionately
evil? Not necessarily. The nascent test is hypersensitive; even
using a fluorocarbon-tainted wax brush on a ski could yield
“strong indications” of cheating.
The governing body of Nordic skiing’s World Cup circuit,
the Fédération Internationale de Ski, has no plans to pro-
hibit fluoro use. Key World Cup races draw about 14 million
European television viewers. The world’s top Nordic skiers,
Johannes Klaebo and Therese Johaug, both Norwegian, make
about $1 million a year. With this kind of lucre at stake, a ques-
tion looms: What sort of desperate measures will the pros take
when fluorinated wax is illegal to bring into Europe, where
most races are held?
Some ski savants are battening down for a dystopian future.
“I’ve got to believe there’s going to be a black market,” says
Gardner, the ex-coach, who now runs a Vermont-based sports
marketing firm. “Will people cheat?” asks one ski store owner,
begging for anonymity. “I know they’re capable of it, because
I sell the wax.”
Myself, of late, I’ve been thinking about this half-used bar of
fluoro that sits in my basement, glinting like a contraband gem-
stone. The European Chemicals Agency advises against taking
fluoro to a landfill (it’ll just leech), so I’m going to use it in my
next race. Why not? One more hit of eerie, unnatural speed—
that’s all I ask, just one more hit. <BW>THE RUB
This is the bar you’ve
got. Here’s what you
do with it.
((1)) Heat waxing iron
to about 295F;
temperature
depends on snow
conditions
((2)) Rub bar of wax on
base of hot iron
((3)) Apply the melting
wax bar onto ski
((4)) Let the ski sit
for 10 minutes,
optimally outside
in the cold
((5)) Scrape with a thin,
flexible scraper
((6)) Brush the ski six
to eight times with
a copper brush
((7)) Brush repeatedly,
maybe 25 times,
with softer nylon
brush, until you can
no longer remove
wax from the ski
((8)) Ski