Norwegian skier caught using fluoride. This is the second disqualification and winter hasn’t started yet!
Yulia Sidorova November 20, 2023, 16:15 Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
After Ragnhild Mowinkel, Philip Holt will be punished. Who is the next one?
The winter season has not yet started and the Norwegians have already become the main troublemakers at international competitions. It is their athletes who have been caught using lubricants containing fluoride for the second time, something that is strictly prohibited starting with the new season.
“This is bullshit!”
On November 19, the last preseason competition took place in Beitostolen, Norway, which was not remembered for its results.
The main news was the first disqualification in the history of ski racing for the use of fluoride ski lubricant. The violator or victim of the new rules is Norwegian Philip Holt, 23 years old. This is the second time athletes have been suspended from a race due to fluoride in the new season. Previously, alpine skier Ragnhild Mowinkel, also Norwegian, was sanctioned.
First fluoride suspension in history:
“She is an innocent victim.” For the first time in history, a Norwegian woman was disqualified for fluoride in her skis
If Mowinckel was punished after the first attempt in the women’s giant slalom, Philip Holt was not allowed to start the 10 kilometer freestyle race. The skier deliberately skipped Saturday’s start to be as fresh as possible on Sunday, but everything went wrong.
“This is bullshit! This is real shit! I don’t know what to say. “I’m really speechless,” the Norwegian cursed. – It’s very strange. These skis have been tested here several times this week. I don’t understand”.
He explained that he tested these skis a week ago in Lillehammer and then in Beitostolen, and everything was fine. Before the race, he sent his partner for repairs, after which fluoride was discovered in the lubricant. In addition, the rest of the skis from the same service passed the necessary tests. All except the Holt couple.
Philip Holt
Photo: from the personal archive of Philip Holt.
“I need to clean my skis 900 times.”
Unlike his peers, Philip did not worry at all about rehearsals before the race. And then, already disappointed, he didn’t understand what else he could do to make his skis comply with the new rules.
“I cleaned my skis myself and I probably cleaned them three times. This is even more than recommended, so I honestly don’t know what I could have done differently. I have to clean them 900 times,” Holt lamented.
According to the head of the Norwegian Ski Federation, Erik Husby, between 90 and 95 percent of all skis were tested over the weekend in Beitostolen. And only Holt’s couple did not meet the standards.
“What is absolutely clear is that we found fluoride residues. We perform repeated measurements at the three facilities we have today. They show the same. Unfortunately, fluoride is present in a larger area of your skis,” Husby said.
Fluoride is a new explanation for all the failures:
“Someone is still using fluoride.” A small scandal at the start of the ski season in Finland
After each new disqualification for fluoride, representatives of ski sports become increasingly tense. Neither Holt nor Mowinckel could explain why the “banned” substance got on their skis. It seems that Norwegian skier Paul Golberg’s joke is not a joke: now everyone will have to take a closer look at the snow in which he competes.
