Salomon Tech Setup
 I arrived on Feb 10th at the Whistler Olympic Park to join the Salomon Support Team (Bertrand Regard, Anthony Marguet and Patrice Frison-Roche) who were already in place since Feb 7th.
Two Salomon Service cabins were setup...1  for Cross-Country Skiing events + 1x Biathlon eventsOur ‘cabins’ were made of renovated ‘shipping containers’.

Salomon Service Team Objectives:    

Support our Team Salomon racers for all their needs – This included:

Ski Support:

·         Salomon brought approx 125 pairs of skis of all models, mixes, sizes to the Olympics.  These were used to ‘fill in the blanks’ and complement the quivers for our team skiers from Canada (2), USA (3), Japan (1), Australia (1), NZ (1), Ukraine (1)

·         Skis were also used to leave as test skis for international skiers who are interested in making the switch for future years – Some of these went to potential Canadian additions...

·         The goal of our tech team was to support our main skiers:  Ivan Babikov (CAN) and Ishida Masako (JPN), and help them increase the depth of their ski quivers.

Salomon Ski Story: In preparation for the men’s 50km classic race, our goal was to find faster skis in our fleet than what Babikov currently had – Of the 10 pairs tested by our team, 4 were identified as ‘very good’.  We then teamed up with Babikov’s Canadian Team tech, Joel Knopff, to compare against his current best.  In the end, we found that 2 pairs were at par or better than Babikov’s current.  Mission accomplished.

·         Since the conditions at the Games were always above 0C and consisted of primarily wet conditions – No cold skis were tested.

·         All skis included specific ‘aftermarket’ grinds applied at the factory prior to the Games

·         As most skis were built based on 2 specific moulds (meaning that all skis in one specific length were of very similar flex values), skis were selected for athletes based on grinds instead of flex values. 

·         Some pairs were provided to some ‘exotic’ teams for day use or races, such as team Bermuda (!), who simply didn’t have the wet skis required to ski on the Callaghan Valley snow (a good connection to keep in your back pocket!)

Binding Support: 

·         This was by far the biggest category of support

·         Fischer brought over 500+ pairs of skis to the Games to support their athletes – of these hundreds of pairs, hundreds were mounted with Salomon bindings.

·         A full day was dedicated to mounting Salomon bindings exclusively – Bindings were mounted on both flat and NIS plate skis.  The trickle of Fischer skis continued throughout the Games, with Salomon mounting/swapping/upgrading bindings an average of 6 pairs of skis/day.

·         The only other brand mounted with Salomon bindings included Madshus (German, Russian and Swedish athletes)

Binding Story: Every brand of skis at the Games have a few pairs of ‘podium’ skis on standby for their athletes to use during podium photo shoots, and media interviews.  As Fischer skis come with black NIS plates, our Salomon bindings don’t ‘pop out’ as much – getting limited exposure. We asked Fischer if they could use regular flat skis as podium skis – they said “NO” of course.  So we thought of another plan... Since we share our SNS System with Atomic, we used Atomic’s  white Propulse RC ridge plate and applied our Salomon sticker...et voila - Fischer podium skis with Salomon Propulse bindings that get noticed!

Binding Stats: Classic
o    SNS Propulse RC = 85% of classic bindings mounted
o    SNS Propulse RC2 = 10% of classic bindings mounted
o    SNS Equipe Pilot Classic = 5% (select Norwegians, Russians still prefer this system over the Propulse)
o    All skis mounted as per skier preference which varied from balance to 0.5cm to 1cm behind

Binding Stats: Skate
o    SNS Equipe Pilot Skate = 100% of skate bindings mounted
o    SNS Wedge = 70% of skate skis were mounted with Wedge. All skis mounted as per skier preference which varied from balance to 0.5cm up to 2cm behind the balance point

Boot Support:

·         5 big duffle bags of boots were brought over to support Salomon athletes – The key was to have boots available in case of breakage, need of replacement or sizing issues.

·         ONLY Top contenders were given the new S-LAB Classic (and S-LAB Vitane) boots (with heel spoiler)

·         S-LAB Pro Skate, S-LAB Skate (regular and Vitane) and S-LAB Classic w/ RS-17 sole were distributed to others according to preference

·         All S-LAB Skate boots were distributed with the Carbon Cuff to complement the performance of the boot.

·         A few athletes were athletes required their boots to be ‘punched’ out or modified with the help of a heat gun and footwear tools. 

Salomon Boot Story:  Marcus Hellner (SWE) came by for a visit the day prior to the 30km Pursuit, He was having sizing issues with his new boots – they were a bit too big.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have his size (8US) ‘in stock’ so we took a 7.5 and increased it to an 8...The following day he won GOLD on those same boots!

The day before the final event – the men’s 50km Classic race, Johan Olsson (SWE) bumped his big toe on some stairs, causing swelling. In training, he realized that the boots were irritating his injury...After a late night boot retrieval mission from the athletes’ village, we modified his classic boots to provide more room around the toe and alleviate the  pressure – He picked up his boots at 8am, and went on to win Olympic Bronze!

Weather Issues:
 As you may have read, the weather at Callaghan Valley was extreme, going through almost every single possibility out there. Rain, fog, snow, heavy snow, flurries, wind, sun and freezing temperatures – we got it all!

Temperature never went below -3C, but reached as high as 15C!

By Phil Villeneuve