The ski jumping world is shaken by a scandal. Norway admits manipulation, Austria suddenly also targets. And Germany?
Norway’s ski jumping team is a wreck. The head coach: suspended. His assistant: suspended: The service technician: suspended. The boss of the ski jumping committee: resigned. The three best jumpers: suspended. In addition, a association president under pressure, a sports director who asserts his innocence, two ex-athletes who have admitted their own fraud and a disqualified combinator who does not want to know anything about his mistake.
The competition at the RAW-Air series in Vikers and this weekend there is hard to think. The manipulation scandal in the Norwegian team hovers above all. Anonymously published videos had shown how a forbidden seam was attached to the ski jumping suits, which helps stability and gives an advantage in the air.
Head coach Magnus Brevig admitted shortly afterwards: “We manipulated or changed the suits so that they violate the regulations. It is a deliberate action, and consequently it is fraud.”
The consequences are known, the frustration abroad is great. Ex-jumper Sven Hannawald calls on T-Online: “If officially cheated, I would immediately cancel all World Cup medals.”
Lindvik had become world champion on the normal hill, but he was only caught on the big hill, which is why he can keep the gold medal. Hannawald doubts that it was on the normal ski jump with clean things: “Why should a lindvik his suit, after becoming world champion on the little ski jump, optimize again before the competition on the big hill? He was the best. That doesn’t make any sense.”
However, the Norwegian team is not the only one that was critically eyed this season. The Austrians have been a thorn in the side of many observers since the four -hill tour. At that time, eleven out of twelve podium places went to the athletes from the Alpine Republic. Daniel Tschofenig, Jan Hörl and Stefan Kraft made the victory among themselves. All other jumpers were far.
Norwegian Halvor Egner Granerud found the Austrian dominance “strange”, the former ski jumping Olympic champion Maren Lundby thought she was “suspicious”. Because the Austrians partially covered their bonds on the skis after the jumping in front of the TV cameras, the rumor mill cooked.
After the last jumping, experts from Norway and Poland were sure that there was “something in the shoes”. It was about the shoe tongues, i.e. the point that connects the shoe with the suit. Ex-ski jumper Johan Roman Evensen suspected at the time that “the Austrians made their shoes flatter. So that they sit better on the start and have a better starting position”.