As the Winter Olympics roars into life in northern Italy, athletes will be sporting state-of-the-art airbag vests that inflate during crashes, protecting speed skiers from the worst injuries.
For those unfamiliar, the Olympics are being held at the renowned ski area called Cortina d’Ampezzo, which is also a stop on the downhill events at the skiing World Cup, and if you didn’t know that, than you wouldn’t know that some of Cortina’s slopes are the fastest on Earth, with skiers routinely hitting freeway speeds.
One wrong turn of the ski could invite disaster, and amid a spate of fatalities in the sport among young Italian skiers, the engineering firm Dainese has worked for several years to perfect a wearable airbag vest.
At the same time, organizers, and the International Skiing Federation (FIS) are re-designing training courses for greater safety, including through measures like installing nets and incorporating larger fall zones.
“You can’t make a sport of speed totally safe… but you can do much more on training pistes [slopes],” the retired Italian downhill skier Kristian Ghedina, told Reuters.
The FIS made airbag vests mandatory for all speed events for the 2024-2025 World Cup circuit. The mandate will also come into affect for the downhill events at the Olympics.
The airbag uses sensors trained on years of runs and GPS technology to monitor an athlete’s motion and trigger only in real crashes. Some athletes have tried to argue their way out of the mandate, suggesting they reduce speed, and don’t want to have their course time put at risk by a misfiring vest, which manufacturer Dainese claims occurs at an extremely low rate.
Just after Christmas, 5 World Cup skiers crashed and suffered serious injuries including a brain hemorrhage on the Stelvio course at Bormio—the site of the Downhill and Super-G events at this year’s Winter Olympics.
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Stelvio has several sections where downhill skiers hit speeds of 90mph, and it’s one of the most hair-raising courses on the World Cup circuit. Reuters spoke with some Italian skiers who say that the Dainese airbag will help safety catch up with the last 20 years of innovation in skies, boots, and ski suits—which have had only speed and performance in mind.
Airbags have existed in the sport for over a decade, and post-crash examination and research in some cases has shown that damage would have been worse if not for the deployment.
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While some skiers argue the vest impedes their movement, another said it offered peace of mind that allowed him to focus on performance.
The airbag mandate should help protect skiers during the downhill events, and companies are looking at how quick-release ski bindings or boots could help reduce the number of knee and tibia injuries when skies don’t snap off in a crash.
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