On the eve of the start of the season, it would be useful to remember all the changes that the IBU is introducing this year.
1. Banning fluoride.
They wanted to introduce it the year before, but everything stopped because there were no full-fledged means of identifying «cheat» skis. No equipment could quickly and with 100% certainty diagnose the presence or absence of fluoride on skis.
Now such an opportunity has arisen. This means that the team and service personnel will again have to invest a lot of money, time and effort in finding and synthesizing wax that would be suitable for certain weather conditions. The races in Shushen showed that the Norwegians are the best at this so far. At least compared to them, the Germans and Italians looked faded.
There will be two checks for each athlete - the first before the start, the second after the finish. If fluoride is detected before the start, the ski pair can be replaced «free» once per season. The second and subsequent ones are disqualification. Detection of fluoride after the finish is disqualification.
2. The distance of mixed relay races is reduced to 4*6 km. Previously, men ran a distance of 7.5 km.
3. Security in terms of handling weapons has been improved. Now you won't be able to blow into the barrel of a rifle (sorry Thierry Langer).
4. Personal quotas, a guaranteed place in the first event of the World Cup, for the winners of last year's overall IBU Cup disappear.
Instead, this quota will belong to the respective athlete's federations, and this time it will be valid for the first two events of the World Cup.
That is, this year the Norwegian men's team and the Swedish women's team will have +1. The Norwegians have already announced that Endre Strömsheim will be in the main team. Tilda Johansson won the IBU Cup for the Swedes. She is also in main Sweden team.
