At Paralympics, a sit skiing technology boom fueled by F1 and wind tunnels

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — “Well, they drive a car, we drive skis,” Vicky Gosling said, as though the answer was obvious.

Gosling, the CEO of GB Snowsport, was explaining the group’s partnership with the Williams Formula One team, which built the Paralympic GB sit skis for the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Games.

Sit skis are used in Para alpine events — downhill skiing — for athletes with a range of impairments, including paraplegia, reduced motor function below the waist, limited or no abdominal function or sitting balance, or amputations above their knees.

Susan Sokolowski, a professor in product design at the University of Oregon, explained the difference.

“An Olympian uses a ski with bindings and boots, and their body acts as the suspension,” she said. “Sit skiers rely on that system to protect their body. They sit in a molded seat. That seat is on a frame, it has a shock absorber and a single ski (called a mono-ski).”

Functionally, Paralympic athletes liken the shock absorber to their knees, while a cover protects their legs.

“They’re always belted in. The control is through their upper body and poles,” Sokolowski said. “Those poles are called outriggers, which look like crutches with a ski attached to the bottom, and are used to turn and balance.”

Sit skiers hit top speeds of just over 70mph (115km/h), only slightly slower than standing Para skiers (77mph/125km/h).

“There’s always marginal gains to be had,” Gosling said. “With sports like ours, focused on equipment, speed, agility and technicalities that we need to truly understand, then it’s worth learning from them (motorsport companies).”

Others have also sought that expertise. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee partnered with Toyota on a three-year project for their sit-skis in Beijing.

Toyota supported Andrea Eskau, the German Paralympic skier who won gold in the 6km biathlon and silver in the 5km cross-country at the 2014 Sochi Games, at age 42. Through their collaboration, using technological insight from Toyota’s work in the Le Mans 24-hour race, came a bespoke sit-ski that was 30 per cent lighter than traditional designs.

Japanese sit-skier Taiki Morii (a Toyota employee in his day job) worked with the company for the 2018 Games, where he won silver in the downhill. From testing in the mountains and then in wind tunnels — he was analyzed in 14 positions — Toyota designed an aerodynamically superior ski that was 15 percent lighter and had a frame three times more rigid.

“In Para sports, it’s wide-open territory for new product design,” Sokolowski said. “There are so many Paralypians still modifying and making their own equipment because these products don’t exist. ​​The connection to these motor sport companies is around carbon fiber and building composites (skis made from a mix of materials).”

Anja Wicker, a German Para biathlete and cross-country sit-skier, told paralympic.org that the shift to carbon fiber was “almost like Formula One.” Just as with modern road-running “super shoes,” bike frames, tennis rackets and golf clubs, better materials change everything.

Sit skiing is a fairly modern discipline. It only debuted in 1984 at the third Paralympic Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria, initially as a demonstration event. The sport became a permanent medal event at the next Games, which were also in Innsbruck.

Super-G and downhill were added for sit skiers in 1992, eight years and two Paralympics later than for standing and visually impaired athletes.

“When these sit skis were created in the 1960s and 1970s, they were made out of aluminum or steel,” Sokolowski said. “They were really heavy and had limited ability to go down steep terrains or twist and turn. The heavier it is, the harder it is to control.

“Technologies like carbon and fiberglass — lightweight materials — have drastically reduced the mass while maintaining the original stiffness. When these were made of steel and aluminum, it was really hard to manipulate (the ski). Para athletes may just have upper-body strength to move it. With constructions, you could be more nimble.”

While there were evolutions and design improvements in the late 20th century, significant innovation has happened since the 2010s.

Ukraine was cited as among the first to make its frames from carbon fiber in 2014. Only in 2010 was the sit-ski program finalized, with the introduction of the super combined event. In that, skiers complete one super-G and one slalom run — the fastest combined time wins.

“You’re able to tune these composites, which is really cool,” Sokolowski said of the manufacturing. “You can arrange the fibers (to change) stiffness, and it can also allow you flexibility and torsion. They customise designs for athletes’ bodies.”

Rivalries are plentiful in sit skiing. Look out for Germany’s Anna-Lena Forster, a four-time medallist from Beijing, who aims to hold onto her super combined and slalom crowns. She will face Momoka Muraoka of Japan, who won the other three women’s events (downhill, super-G, giant slalom) four years ago.

Among the men, there’s a Dutch duo who should contend for medals again: Jeroen Kampschreur (super combined silver in 2022) and Niels de Langen (slalom silver, super combined bronze).

The Netherlands Paralympic Committee worked with the Delft University of Technology to make their sit skis for the last Games. Their research, using wind tunnels and testing plaster casts, focused on refining the tailored foam area around the waist, where the athlete is strapped into the seat.

Norway’s Jesper Pedersen got the better of Kampschreur and de Langen. Pedersen was the only athlete to win four gold medals in Beijing (super-G, super combined, slalom, giant slalom), and he took silver in downhill. New Zealand’s Corey Peters beat him for gold in downhill. All four will be in Cortina.

Simon Briscoe, the head of innovation at High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ), told The Athletic before the Games about how they redesigned and improved Peters’ sit ski across multiple Paralympic cycles. The Kiwi was a downhill bronze medallist in 2018, before winning downhill gold and super-G silver at the last Games.

“Two cycles ago (2014 to 2018) we saw other countries playing around in this area,” Briscoe says. “There was talk of the Japanese team, who were modifying the leg cover. That kicked off our conversation.”

He described their work for the Pyeongchang 2018 Paralympic Games as “an experiment of a project.” It laid some key foundations.

“We jumped in the wind tunnel and tried to see what worked and what didn’t. I learned (at a previous job) in Formula One that if anyone tells you they know about aerodynamics, they’re lying. There’s some principles and approaches which tend to work, but it’s so complex that trying things is fundamentally what it comes down to. The real world doesn’t lie.”

There were challenges. They struggled to keep Peters in the same position for long periods, and the wind tunnel only hit limited speeds. “We had lots of noise in the data,” Briscoe said.

But they had green shoots, too. “It gave us direction and an understanding of the key areas to work on — where the areas of sensitivity for drag were, which were different to what we initially thought.

“Fundamentally, we learned that weight is massive. It makes sense as soon as you say it out loud, especially when you think about the shape and bluntness of what you’re sending down the slope.”

Improving the leg cover did not turn out to be the silver bullet. They reduced drag by 1.5 percent, only a small gain.

For the 2022 Paralympic Games, Briscoe and HPSNZ scaled things up, working with University of Canterbury researchers and using 3D printing alongside wind tunnels.

“We were able to verify what we thought was happening with the air flow,” Briscoe said. “The big benefit with (modern) materials and the manufacturing processes is really on shapes.”

Briscoe used the word “practicality” within the design process.

“Corey needs to get himself on the chairlift and up to the top. We can’t give him something that doesn’t fit on that,” Briscoe said. “Also, it needs to operate when there’s plenty of snow flying about, so things that fill up or jam up with snowpacking are no good. It’s very easy to create something wild and wacky in the computer — and then in the wind tunnel — that doesn’t work in real life.”

Peters called the 2022 design the “Ferrari of sit skis.” It featured a redesigned seat with a Kamm tail, the abrupt cut-off shape used on some Mercedes and Alfa Romeo cars. That change, plus an improved leg cover (which reduced drag by 10 percent), made the difference.

The group also collected data on the ski suspension and shock absorption. “That’s really key to connect him to the snow properly and give him the feel that he needs,” Briscoe said

A 38-year-old Peters took the downhill title on a particularly technical course in Beijing — 11 of 25 finalists did not finish. He hopes to become the first man to win consecutive titles in the event since American Chris Waddell in 1994 and 1998.

“It’s always good to see when people are pointing at the funny-looking thing, making fun of it and then Corey produces that performance,” Briscoe said through a smile. “Our role is entirely about removing obstacles, about unlocking the performance that Corey has within him.”

Briscoe, without trying to, speaks on behalf of all engineers and researchers for sit skiers. They have helped catalyze the development of the sport.

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