CAS, the international court of appeals for sports, should reserve its own quota place for cross-country skiing in handling appeal cases, writes Atte Husu.
November 24, 2023. A date to remember. At that time, cross-country skiing enters a new era, when the ban on the use of fluoride creams is valid for the first time at the World Cup in Ruka.
The international skiing federation FIS announced the beginning of the fluoride ban on Wednesday. FIS has assured every year from the end of 2019 that the ban will come into force next season and that the test equipment to monitor the ban will work. However, it has been quiet on the practical front.
As such, Wednesday’s announcement did not offer anything new. The only difference this time was that the International Biathlon Union IBU, which has achieved a strong market position in Central Europe, agreed with FIS’s declaration of the ban coming into force.
Prohibits legal products
Whether the ban is implemented or not, the FIS leadership will not get a clean slate from the saga. The association received widespread criticism already three years ago, when it began to push the ban like a snake into a gun, despite the justified criticism of sportsmen and scientists. Urheilu made an extensive report on the subject in the spring of 2020.
Despite these, FIS has pushed forward with the ban, citing human health and the environment, without presenting concrete justifications for its claims.
Fluoride creams, which are banned now, are manufactured in accordance with the law. In other words: FIS restricts the business activities of entities operating in the ointment market, for which it has received complaints to the European Union Commission.
The EU is limiting its legislation on the use of fluoride in 2026 at the earliest. The parties involved in elite skiing have stressed from the beginning that they are not against a fluoride ban, but want to implement a revolutionary change in the sport in peace and piety.
Fluorine is superior among creams in terms of its slip properties and its ability to repel water and dirt. Lest it be unclear to anyone, chemical doping of athletes does not come close to the benefits of a similar size that fluorine offers in the conditions where the lion’s share of the World Cup and prestigious competitions are skied.
Different rules in different competitions
As Urheilu revealed in December, the price tag of the ban at the national ski federations has already risen to hundreds of thousands of euros even before it came into force.
Only large ski resorts have been able to prepare for the fluoride ban, which, thanks to their resources, have had the opportunity to run a testing room on the side of normal operations. It says something about the differences between the two countries that at the test event organized by FIS last summer, the maintenance crew of the Czech Ski Federation slept in a car to save on hotel expenses.
The sport does not have a factor that balances power relations as well as fluoride creams. This applies regardless of level, from the absolute top of the adult ranks to the junior leagues.
The FIS announced that the fluoride ban will be implemented in the World Cup and value competitions, but did not say anything about the practices of other racing series. According to the estimates of informed parties, the reason is that the device that monitors the ban costs around ten thousand euros.
So the question remains the same as in 2019: in which racing series is the line drawn for banning legal fluoride creams? It is certain that in different competitions you ski with different rules.
It is also likely that next season the International Court of Appeal for Sports, CAS, will have a number of handling cases on its desk related to the reliability of the device and punishments.
– While waiting for the first CAS case…, a skiing influencer who has been influential in the field for a long time approached the undersigned on Wednesday, when FIS had published its information.
A causer of problems, not a solver
Although in the eyes of the sports community, FIS’s activities have taken on sad circles in recent years, the fluoride ban is only one chapter in a series of much-criticized decisions.
Athletes and coaches have widely condemned the points calculation reform of the World Cup launched for this season, which princely rewards the middle class instead of the successful.
FIS also ran through the travel reforms for this season, despite the athletes’ opposition.
Cross-country skiing has many problems to solve in the next few years, but for now FIS appears to be causing problems rather than solving them.
Taking into account the trend of recent years, it is appropriate to ask whether it would be time for international skiing bosses to involve the field staff more closely than at present in decision-making about the future of the sport.
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