Early December 2019. Lillehammer. Athletes are long gone from the tracks to rest before their races, but there is no respite for Simon Caprini and Roddy Darragon, Rossignol racing managers… Caprini is cheerfully smiling into the camera but he has an important hurdle to pass tomorrow and is – probably – a little nervousLaying down on the snow are all-new S line skate racing skis, product of months of hard labor by Rossignol designers and testers. They are camouflaged to look as the current version but contain several important innovations..24 hours later it’s time to crack open a bottle of champagne : Rossignol’s biggest star of the last seasons, Alex Bolshunov crosses the line first in 30k skiathlon – on new skis…
Says Simon Caprini, Rossignol’ senior racing manager:
We kept the character of the skis with the stability and the control. Our goal for skating skis was to give more of the feeling under the foot. We also did try to add a better fluidity by changing shape.
The balance of the ski is better: tips and heels are lighter which brings a really cool “flying feeling”.
The elements in skis are also different. For instance, the carbon fiber we did use in the past is no longer there, it was improved.
The most important for us was to bring a new free feeling.
It’s not just Bolshunov who got to use the all-new Rossis. van der Graaff (pictured), Pellegrino, Taugboel – a short list of those whom new skis already brought to the podiums this season …Finally, last week Rossignol unveiled the newest iteration of X-IUM Skating Premium S at ISPO – and now they could be shown in original , ” proper” colors. And we could tell albeit briefly this story
