As you can see by the banner above, racing, whatever type it is, oftentimes comes down to a final stretch or lung, unless the racer finds away to break away from the rest of the racers. In skiing, there is much more to a race than just strength and skill. The strongest or fittest skier on a given day does not always win. This is usually because the skier used the wrong skis for a certain condition or the wrong wax. I am going to focus on how a skier can choose the wrong pair of skis. 

There can be two possibilities of choosing a wrong pair of skis:

1. The flex of the ski, which is a complex process of choosing a ski for certain snow types (hard pack snow or fluffy, soft snow), how the person skis in those conditions, and many other aspects that have yet to be scientifically narrowed down to a regulated process. In many countless races, the wrong skis are blamed on for a great skier to have done poorly in a race.
2. The grind of the ski or the structure of a ski. The structure of a ski depends on the snow type, whether soft, hard, cold, wet, old, new, etc. Structure in skis are easily described as pressed or cut indentation in the ski that makes a pattern on the ski.