On the Inside: How Swix Racing Service Worked During the Milano Cortina Olympics

Written by: Henrik Mühlbradt
Photos by: Gretchen Powers

It is early morning in Val di Fiemme. The stadium is quiet. The TV towers are dark. The athletes are still resting under their hotel duvets.

But in a small cluster of waxing cabins, the lights are already on.

A group from the Swix Racing Service is already out on the course. They speak quietly. They feel the snow between their fingers. Measure temperature and humidity. Look at the sky. Check the day’s weather forecast.

“The snow is coarse-grained and icy,” one of them says.

It is the Milano Cortina Olympics. And already now, early in the morning, the battle for medals has begun.

The Difference is in the Details

Swix Racing Service team has been in Italy for three weeks when the Games approach their final days. If you’ve been watching closely, you may have noticed them in the background of TV broadcasts in their characteristic yellow vests.

Preparing skis for the world’s best athletes is not a job for just anyone. During the Olympics, the service team has skied around 500 kilometers — not for training, but for testing. Every day they send detailed test reports to the nations competing in cross-country skiing, biathlon, and Nordic combined. They wax, measure, discuss, and adjust.

Then they begin preparing test skis.

Eight pairs of skate skis. Four to six pairs of classic skis. Different combinations. Different bases. Different kick waxes. Different top layers.

Three hours before the start, they head out into the course to test the skis against each other — up and down the same stretch again and again.

Small Margins and Big Consequences

The athletes have invested thousands of training hours preparing for the Olympics. Good glide and reliable kick are essential if they are to benefit from all that work. Poor skis can cost many places.

Do you ever feel the pressure, Morten Sætha?

“I rarely feel pressure. We’ve tested a lot, right up until the start. We give the best advice we can,” says the experienced serviceman.

Val di Fiemme did not deliver the perfect ski conditions many had hoped for. The snow was coarse, loose, and icy. In classic races it became clear to everyone just how brutal it can be when the kick wax fails.

“It can mean minutes if you get it wrong. Or make it impossible to finish,” says Sætha.

He elaborates:

“The key with klister was doing a good job with the base; first roughening the ski properly, then applying several thin layers of very sticky klister. The snow was extremely coarse and icy, with a lot of wear. You had to apply klister thicker than usual, and not too soft.

Some teams probably made the mistake of applying too thin a layer, either in the top layer or the middle layer. Then the grip becomes slightly too weak, and you might think you need a softer klister. But a softer klister also wears off faster, and then you lose grip after just a few kilometers.

What we did instead of using softer klister was apply a slightly thicker layer of a stickier klister (universal klister instead of red). That gave both good grip and strong durability. A lot of this comes down to experience and craftsmanship.”

Where the magic happen: In a cramped cabin filled with a wide range of equipment, much of the foundation for the athletes’ success on the ski track is laid.

The Products That Disappeared

Swix works continuously on product development, and the Olympics is one of the arenas where new products are tested.

Among the products tested in Italy were two new liquid glide waxes. For now, they are only available through Swix Racing Service. They were developed specifically with the conditions athletes might encounter on Olympic courses in mind.

More than 200 units of one test product disappeared from the cabin in just two weeks. When nations come back to buy more, it is a clear sign that it works.

National teams are notoriously secretive about what they actually use. No one reveals how their skis are prepared before the starting gun fires.

But in the service area, you can see who drops by.

“We can’t share who used what. It’s important that teams can trust us. That information stays with us. But when we receive positive feedback on our recommendations, that’s the closest we get to a victory,” says Sætha.

Long Days on Skis for the Service Team Too

During the Olympics, a typical workday last 12–13 hours. Members of the service team may ski up to 40 kilometers on some days. In addition to testing, there is customer contact, sales, meetings with wax technicians, and conversations with athletes.

During the biathlon competitions in Anterselva, the rhythm was the same. But there they only test glide, since biathletes ski freestyle only.

“We create a test series based on the day’s conditions, test in the course, send a report, and then go around to the nations to discuss the findings,” says Vegard Gjermundshaug, responsible for Swix Racing in biathlon.

During the Olympics, they did not wax skis for the biathlon nations — everyone has their own setups. However, smaller nations often have agreements with larger teams.

In cross-country skiing, smaller nations could deliver their skis to Swix and receive World Cup-standard waxing. In this way, everyone can have top-quality skis, even with fewer resources than the major ski nations.

Swix Triac 5.0: The Most Winning Pole

Before the Olympics, all Swix-sponsored athletes received new Triac 5.0 poles, the top model in Swix’s cross-country pole lineup.

They are built with carbon shafts that ensure optimal power transfer, feature an aerodynamic design, and include several other details designed to give athletes every possible advantage.

Each pole was carefully cut to the perfect height for every athlete and equipped with different baskets for different conditions, as well as personalized strap solutions.

And if something goes wrong, Swix Racing Service is ready to hand out a new pole along the course.

Swix takes great pride in seeing athletes succeed with their equipment, and the visibility on the podium is of course important. Before athletes go to interviews, the team is ready with longer podium poles with blocks, ensuring the Swix logo appears at face height.

Passion for the Sport

During the Olympics, fewer wax brands were present than in the past. The market is tougher. Several companies have reduced their racing investment, but Swix has chosen the opposite strategy.

Large parts of the marketing budget go to Racing Service, to the people who get up early in the morning and test in the cold so athletes can have perfect skis when the battle for medals begins later in the day.

“We do it because we believe this is the heart of Swix, and it’s how we stay sharp. Every day we are challenged by athletes, wax technicians, and teams to develop products that are the fastest and best on the market. Without that connection to the sport, we would have been outclassed long ago,” says Ida Stokstad, Marketing Director at Swix.