I had a younger buddy who worked on the WC tour, right out of college, as a VERY lowly service assistant "grunt" with a bunch of tasks. I know that at one point, when he worked for Lange, part of his job was to grab the the athletes' "real boots from them, and hand them pair of the latest production plug boots to hold over their shoulder {held together with the Lange power strap...which none of them used} for the photo ops.
One race day, things were out of control busy and he missed that "task". I think the two guys who were photographed on the podium were Eberharter and Maier, maybe Rahlves, too. They were all in Lange, but NOTHING that looked like the average Lange plug. Their boots were carbon fibre. They were painted a touch darker blue. The Lange logo was painted on them {and often touched up with model paint.} The liners? All made of smooth black leather. All foamed. I believe all actually custom made by Stroltz. And yeah, they used this thing called a Booster Strap. So....NOT GOOD to have those pics snapped.
My buddy almost got fired, but they paid him nothing and he worked like a dog. He stuck with them for the season.
We have another friend who worked in a similar role for Rossi, basically doing really crappy work that the techs would not do. One of the toolboxes that he travel with with full of boot parts, decals, model paint {brush and spray} and his job was to make sure that Tomba's Lange boots always looked like the current model, though the shells were all the wrong color. They also as I recall had some fiberglass reinforcement inside the cuffs that had to be hidden. Those things NEVER got near the podium.
Tomba had a nice contract with Scott poles, but hated the grips, so the poles that he actually used were Scott shafts with Grippon grips, which I think had older leather Kerma straps....all doctored color wise, and all ripped out of his hands not to be seen near the cameras.....or hopefully not.
The ski piece was always easy. Easy quick swap.
I've always thought it was pretty funny as who would begin to think that what "they use" is close to what the rest of us could obtain through a normal distribution chain...OR that what they use is actually the same thing that they are seen with. It's not.
I recall being invited to watch Hirscher train, early season {a tough invite to get, tough company, through a friend} and watching them dial in his whole setup. Pretty interesting. My mutual friend made the comment that not one piece of his setup was as cosmetically set up....nothing was what it appeared to be. And kind of obvious up close. And no cameras permitted.
All I've got.
