According to the Olympic champion Martin Schmitt, ski jumping, after the fraud affair around manipulated suits, cannot fary the agenda and focus on sport.
The services of Andreas Wellinger on the RAW-Air tour in Norway were “outstanding ski jumping”, Martin Schmitt praised “Eurosport”. “It was also important to send this message. Nevertheless, such a scandal cannot be wiped away with a successful weekend. It still works and it should also improve.”
The 47-year-old, who won the winter games in Salt Lake City Gold in team jumping and also won four World Cup titles in his career, emphasized: “We all hope for sustainable changes and improvements in the regulations and enforcement of the regulations.”
Norwegian ski jumpers had used illegal suits at the home World Cup in Trondheim. First the top stars Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang, then three other athletes and several staff members have therefore been disqualified by the FIS.
Ski jumping: Martin Schmitt sees “important step”, but …
In addition, the Ski World Association took further consequences that Schmitt rated positively: “In any case, it was the right step to only allow a suit that has already been worn. Everyone agreed that it was simply kept. The FIS also wanted to check again whether that was okay. That was so far used. That was the right measure so that the teams could build up with each other again and to the controller.”
The publication of video recordings of the control process is “for him another important step towards more transparency, although it can also take place more precisely,” said Schmitt.
At the moment, the control body is “a bit understaffed”, the ski jumping icon said. “If he had more support, Christian Kathol (FIS material controller, editor’s note) could carry out the control even more precisely and in the end we would have an even more fairer result.”