Boxers, Briefs or a Hybrid Sheath? (Published 2012) (2024)

KITZBÜHEL, Austria — The latest front in nefarious performance enhancement in sports: underwear.

A fit of confusion has spread through competitive skiing in recent days after a Slovene skier who finished second at a major event in Austria was accused of wearing plastic undergarments that might have given her an unfair aerodynamic advantage. The Swiss ski federation lodged a complaint with the sport’s governing body, and an examination of the skier’s underwear was conducted. Fruit of the Loom these were not.

A ruling was made over the weekend: the clothing was permissible, though officials advised female skiers not to wear it because of health concerns. Apparently the amount of plastic in the underwear might prevent a skier’s skin from breathing properly.

The ruling, however, did not extinguish the dispute; it has merely moved to the men’s side of professional skiing.

The issue has stoked intense debate this week ahead of a World Cup competition here in this village in the Central Alps. Gunther Hujara, the men’s race director for the sport’s world governing body, known as FIS, waved around a piece of blue material at a meeting with coaches, saying: “If we see something like this, we will not hesitate to disqualify immediately. We do not go through a test, we disqualify. And then you, or somebody who wears it, has to prove that what he wears does not endanger athletes’ health.”

The type of undergarment Hujara was referring to was not precisely the same as that worn by the Slovene skier, Tina Maze. The underwear in question for men is a full-bodied, plastic-neoprene hybrid sheath worn under the racer’s traditional speed suit. According to Hujara, this style of undergarment has not yet appeared on the women’s tour.

In a sport where victory is often decided by hundredths of a second, racers look for any opportunity to shave time off their runs, experimenting with speed-suit fabrics, modifying equipment setups and working with technicians to identify the perfect ski wax. Because some air passes through a skier’s outer layer of clothing, undergarments that further reduce wind resistance may be the next frontier of strategic equipment.