Team USA is proving that world-class skiing doesn’t require PFAS wax

Coming into the Milan-Cortina Olympics, an American hadn’t won a medal in men’s cross-country skiing in half a century. A few days into the Games, though, Vermonter Ben Ogden squeaked through the classic sprint semifinals. Suddenly there was hope. In the final, Ogden pushed across the Tesero Stadium finish line in second — breaking the drought.

Asked afterward if he thought it might take another 50 years for the next podium, he said no. Five days later, he and Gus Schumacher made good on that when they took silver in the team sprint. 

With two days of competition remaining, U.S. skiers and snowboarders have already earned more than a dozen medals at these Games  — including Mikaela Shiffrin’s gold in the alpine slalom, Chloe Kim’s silver in halfpipe snowboarding, and Jessie Diggins overcoming a bruised rib to win a Nordic bronze. The cross-country ski team’s three-medal haul is its largest ever.

The hardware is historic for another reason as well: It was won despite the first-ever Olympic ban on fluorinated ski waxes containing so-called “forever chemicals.”

Since the 1980s, elite skiers and snowboarders have relied on these “fluoro” waxes, which are exceptional at repelling water and dirt. Former U.S. racer Nathan Schultz told Grist they provide a “really ridiculous speed advantage.” But they contain PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a class of 15,000 chemicals notorious for never breaking down. Studies have linked exposure to thyroid disease, developmental problems, and cancer.

Amid growing concern, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, known by the French acronym FIS, announced plans for a blanket ban on fluoro waxes in 2019. The policy took effect in 2023. The International Biathlon Union also prohibits them. Without fluoros, teams have had to rethink everything from ski choice to race-day strategy, making these Games the clearest test yet of whether elite snow sports can succeed in a PFAS-free era.

“These have been some of the trickiest three weeks of waxing I’ve experienced,” said Chris Hecker, who is Schumacher’s ski technician. Some days brought rain. Others were sunny and warm. Then there were those where the snow piled high. “Every variable — precipitation, sun exposure, humidity, even a one-degree temperature shift — can influence which skis and waxes we select.” 

Fluorinated waxes were long seen as a “great equalizer” that improved speed across a range of conditions, particularly when the snow was warm or wet. Without it, success depends more on ski or snowboard choice and the grind pattern etched into their base to optimize performance, much like a tire tread. 

Different conditions call for different skis, and elite cross-country racers often travel with dozens — sometimes more than 100 — pairs. Still, wax is crucial. “We’re always chasing marginal gains,” said Hecker. “At this level, tiny differences matter.”

Choosing the best combination of skis and wax has meant constant testing and re-evaluation throughout the Games. Although there have been what Hecker called “small mistakes” along the way, the team quickly adapted. 

“It’s nearly impossible to have the absolute best skis every single day,” he said. “That said, we’ve had a wildly successful Olympics.”

Hecker and the cross-country team aren’t the only members of Team USA trying to rise to the post-fluoro occasion at these Games. Tanner Keim is a ski tech with the U.S. free ski team also working without the fluoro waxes he used four years ago in Beijing. 

“It was a lot warmer in Italy. Fluoros would have been popping for all the wax techs,” he said, adding that humidity also was a major factor, especially at the women’s slopestyle skiing event. The men competing in big air also seemed to be trying to find every extra mile per hour, with coaches pulling many athletes down the launch ramp to gain more speed.

After years of testing and adjustment, Keim feels that he’s got the new materials fairly well dialed in. His athletes have two silver medals as proof. But even still, he said, “I would have been a little bit more confident with the fluoros.”

While competing without fluoros has been hard enough, preventing people from competing with it has been almost as tough. In 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fined the equipment company Swix hundreds of thousands dollars for illegally importing PFAS wax. A large part of FIS delaying the implementation of its ban came because testing was finicky and carried a risk of false positives.

A testing regime was sorted out two years ago, and Milan-Cortina saw the first Olympic disqualifications for violating the ban: Two South Korean Nordic skiers and a Japanese snowboarder. All of them say their positive tests were the result of accidentally using the wrong wax or applying tainted wax. In a statement to Grist, the South Korean Ski Association said “test results showed that fluoride was detected in one of the fluoride-free waxes.”

If enforcement marks the rule’s credibility, the results mark its success. For athletes, medals, of course, are the most visible validation of that, and Team USA still has two more days to build on its triumphs. For the cross-country team, that means the men’s and then women’s 50-kilometer race, dubbed a “ski marathon,” in which Diggens, Schumacher, and Ogden are expected to compete. 

After his latest podium, Ogden was again asked whether the U.S. men might slip back into a slump. “No — I don’t think it’ll be another 50 years,” he said, two glimmering silver medals hanging from his neck.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Team USA is proving that world-class skiing doesn’t require PFAS wax on Feb 21, 2026.