Faster, lighter, springier: quest for perfect ski

With the 2018 Winter Olympics approaching, ski makers look to craft the perfect ski outfits

ALTENMARKT, Austria - It is not just American hopes that will be riding on the performance of Mikaela Shiffrin when the world's top woman alpine skier takes to the slopes at the Winter Olympics in South Korea next month.

Half a world away in the small Austrian town of Altenmarkt, the marketing and tech teams at ski manufacturer Atomic will be closely watching the medal count in Pyeongchang, the culmination of about 18 months of internal company planning.

Of 900 staff based at the company south of Salzburg, 38 are part of a team of international specialists, whose job is to develop ever-sleeker and more manoeuvrable skis for everything from racing to backcountry touring.

Whereas in the early 1990s design was revolutionised by switching from long, straight racing skis to a side-cut 'parabolic' shape, and later shifts focused on the camber, or arch, of the ski, the trend in recent years has been towards more advanced materials such as titanium.

Atomic General Manager Wolfgang Mayrhofer said the thinner, less dense materials, including lighter wood cores, and the deeper sidecuts permitted under new giant slalom rules have made a big difference to the skis.

"The skis are easier to turn," said Austria's Marcel Hirscher, the six-times overall World Cup champion who is bidding for his first Olympic gold medal in Pyeongchang.

"But now with the new materials they can ski different lines, they keep the same stability and rigidity but they are much more flexible, much more dampening.

"So it's big progress since the Sochi days, since the last Olympics."