Ted Liget's Opinion on FIS GS Regulations

Ted Ligety is an Olympic Alpine Ski Racer from Salt Lake City, USA.  In his latest blog, he certainly doesn't sit on the fence when it comes to his opinion on FIS new regulations to change the turn radius of GS skis from >27m to >35m; and minimum length from 185cm to 195cm.  Ted is a pro athlete and his opinion is certainly a good one to quote when you will (no doubt) have a conversation on this subject in the Pub Mont Fort this winter - he is the reigning World Cup GS Champion, after all!

The article claims that FIS' new regulations will increase injuries and reduce the enjoyment of the sport.  It will also move ski companies away from ski racing as the technology is backward, meaning they have no incentive to use ski racing for R&D for their commercial ranges.  Combined with FIS making sponsorship on goggles difficult, this will drain money from the sport, driving the move towards Freeride skiing.  It's a compelling argument and I'd be very interested to see a counter-argument.

The only one I can find so far is from Beni Reich, who says, "For me security is the most important, which means reducing the aggressiveness of the materials by using longer, narrower skis and a larger radius.  I am in full agreement with the conclusions drawn by the FIS and its extensive surveys, tests and analysis.  The fears that there was a throwback to the “stone age of the sport” is, one I can clearly refute. I expect that it will change nothing for the spectators."

Check out Ben's full blog article here

See Beni Reich's blog for his position. (I used the German translation from this blog).

I tried to find the official FIS comments on their website - but the site is so badly put together that anything relevant was impossible to find, and I gave up!