First, the World Cup final was ruined. Then came the shock: “They look like they’ve been run over by a plane.”

The Finnish ski star is furious. First, Lauri Vuorinen had his World Cup final in Lake Placid ruined when his ski bag with race skis never arrived.

Now, two and a half weeks later, they have finally been returned. But it was a grim sight that met him when he got his ski bag back with all his best skis.

Completely unusable

The 31-year-old, who won both silver and bronze at the World Championships in Trondheim last year, lists the damage:

“Two pairs are broken in half. Two pairs have bent tips. One pair isn’t broken, but the tips are bent and crushed,” Vuorinen tells Iltalehti.

“I’m not sure about the remaining four pairs. They look fine on the outside, but you never know. On classic skis, the pressure zones are precisely tuned for optimal glide. If those skis are compressed, bent, or twisted, they can be useless,” he says.

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The damaged skis are valued at around €5,000. Three of the pairs were particularly special, his very best skis for specific conditions.

The equipment was originally supposed to go to Lake Placid for the World Cup final from March 20 to 22, but it never arrived. Instead, it was sent back to Rovaniemi. By then, the ski bag had been on 15 different flights. Vuorinen had a tracker inside the bag to monitor its location.

Criticizes airline

Air France, which was responsible, instructed Vuorinen to report the damage through the standard procedure.

“I called customer service, and they just told me to fill out an online form.”

Now he criticizes the airline’s baggage handling.

“I’m 100 percent sure that even if you threw the ski bag from the top of a building, it wouldn’t be this damaged. They look like they’ve been run over by a plane,” says Lauri Vuorinen.

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