Beth Hornby

Ski waxing often drives wax technicians to toil behind a curtain of old newspapers to evade the prying eyes of competitors. Wax is the make-or-break component in cross-country skiing and wax technician Yves Bilodeau is Canada's secret weapon.

Bilodeau started with the Canadian nordic team in 1979 and competed internationally until 1995. But this self-proclaimed cross-country junkie couldn't stray from the sport for long.

He returned to his team as a technician, prepping skis for international championships, including the 1998 Nagano Olympics and 2002 Salt Lake City Games. Come February, he will be Canada's senior technician in Turin for the Winter Games.

Gliding to the Games
Bilodeau has been waxing the skis of Olympic gold medallist Beckie Scott for more than a decade and was on hand for her golden pursuit cross-country race at Salt Lake City 2002. The trust between them runs so deep that before every race Scott now asks Bilodeau to hold her watch as a good-luck token.

"Bilodeau was one of the first people at the finish line at the Salt Lake Games with a bone-crushing hug," Scott recalls. "He's a really tough guy on the outside but he always cries when something great like that happens."

These days, Bilodeau cruises throughout Europe and Scandinavia in the team mini bus, a wax hut on wheels, emblazoned with the Cross Country Ski de Fond logo. Shortly after retiring from competition, this Quebec City native moved to Ruffieux, France, to find serenity in the European pace of life. But he doesn't exactly kick back and sip Bordeaux during the ski season.

Bilodeau says he has the best job in the world, though he concedes that life on the road can be lonely. Occasionally he persuades a fellow-technician to ride shotgun with him, if he promises not to croon his "crazy" French Canadian tunes.

As the thoroughbreds of nordic skiing prepare for Torino 2006, the Canadian wax technicians leave no ski unturned in their quest for the perfect run. Bilodeau's pit crew knows that proper waxing is vital for success.

Making the cut
National team skiers have up to 20 pairs of skis in their arsenals, and some 50 waxes at their disposal. With so many variables, they have a lot of decisions to make on race day. Racers know it's not always the speed of the horse that wins the race; often it's the condition of the carriage.

"Basically, without good skis and wax, you don't really have a chance in the competition, so (wax technicians) are an absolutely critical part of the equation," explains Scott.

Bilodeau kicks off this annual six-month stint by going to the manufacturers and selecting the best new equipment to bring back to Canmore, Alta., for Team Canada's approval. The real work begins in the days leading up to a race.

The day before racing, Bilodeau, and up to five other wax technicians, help the athletes select three pairs of skis that will compliment the course and weather conditions. Whether it's a freestyle or classic race, these skis are hot-waxed for optimum glide.

Bilodeau says the selection process is sometimes finicky, at best. On the morning of, athlete and technician narrow the selection to one pair.

"It's funny, some athletes have an incredible feeling, like they jump on a pair of skis and they say 'This one is the best.' And some other athletes, they have no idea. They cannot choose from a pair of skis that doesn't move, and a pair of skis that glide like crazy. It's as if they have no feeling. It may be because of their stress."

Bilodeau tries to keep tension to a minimum, though it's never easy to make peace with the pre-race jitters.

"It can sometimes be a very intense experience, selecting your skis for a race, especially if you don't agree on how the skis feel," says Scott. "It can be getting very close to the start of the race and you still haven't decided anything and the wax might still need to be adjusted a little. It can be really stressful."

The nervous centre
Bilodeau's job is to make skiers confident in their equipment. Most days it's a sixth sense for wax technicians. Bilodeau says they usually know exactly the kind of wax they'll be using in the few steps they walk to the van on the morning of the race, before they actually check temperature, snow and humidity readings.

"You look at the athlete and you tell them that this is good, it's going to work," Bilodeau says. "Don't stress, go for it and you're going to have a really good ski."

When they arrive at the course on race day, Bilodeau and the technicians begin by verifying humidity readings, snow and air temperatures near the start area. But as altitude fluctuates, so does snow condition, and the blend of wax can change with every fraction of a degree.

Rather than test the temperature of every topographic ripple, Bilodeau delegates one wax technician to ski the course and report back on the performance of the wax. This can take up to four hours for the 50-kilometre race.

Bilodeau chooses high-priced, high-tech, powdered fluorocarbon waxes for special races. This application is a fine powder that requires technicians to wear filtered masks.

Some days the expensive wax works best and one pair of skis can end up with $60 to $100 worth of the stuff layered on it. Other days, the cheap wax will suffice. That's why they test.

Wax off
Experienced technicians don't fluster easily, unless the weather is zero degrees with fresh falling snow, when skiers might kiss their rhythm goodbye. What falls as rain in the valleys, comes down as snow at the peaks.

But if no application will do, they forfeit the waxing game altogether. That's when the technicians resort to the technique of stone grinding.

Basically, they grind the ski base into specific patterns that perform best under certain snow conditions. It works somewhat like aqua-treads automobile snow tires, directing moisture out of the base to avoid the "slippery when wet" problems a skier may encounter. The wetter the conditions, the deeper the grind.

The Canadian team expects to have their own, top-of-the-line, $250,000 stone grinding machine in time to host a World Cup event in Vernon, B.C. this December. Until then, they will rely on specialists in Italy, or use older grinding machines at home.

Canada's wax technicians are an athlete's best ally, and their biggest fans.

"They are our race support, drivers and training partners," says Scott. "They do an incredible amount of work and put in enormous hours, and at the end of the day, they are also the guys we laugh and joke around with and have the most fun. Essentially, without our technicians, we wouldn't have a team in any sense of the word."

Like all Olympians, cross-country skiers must be highly skilled and motivated, yet if all athletes were equally skilled and motivated, the win goes to the wax technician on race day.

page mise en ligne par SVP

vé lo ski de fond plongeon
Consultez notre ENCYCLOPÉDIE sportive