The Milan Cortina Games will make history this winter—not with a record-breaking time, but with an absence. For the first time, the Olympics will have no fluorinated ski waxes, the performance-boosting compounds that skiers and snowboarders have relied on for decades.
Those waxes contain PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, better known as "forever chemicals" because they don't break down in the environment or the human body. They accumulate in soil and water around ski slopes, seeping into pristine landscapes that athletes train on and communities depend on. The health effects are documented: kidney disease, thyroid problems, immune suppression.
The ban, which took effect in 2023, emerged from a simple realization: the marginal speed gain from fluorinated waxes wasn't worth the cost. Athletes have adapted. Manufacturers have developed alternatives. And the sport moves forward without poisoning the places where it happens.
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Start Your News DetoxIt's a small shift in a massive industry, but it matters because it shows how even when performance is on the line—when nanoseconds separate gold from going home empty-handed—the conversation has started to include environmental cost. The Olympics generate enormous environmental impacts across host cities and the sports they feature. One chemical ban doesn't fix that. But it's the kind of decision that compounds over time, the way forever chemicals do, except in reverse.
The Milan Cortina Games will be cleaner because of it. And the athletes will still be fast.
