The mixed competition of ski jumpers at the Olympic Games in Beijing caused the biggest scandal to date. Katharina Althaus, one of the disqualified, has now commented on the incidents.
“I felt very sorry for the team. Such a disqualification can of course happen. At the Olympics it was mega, mega bitter and also kind of funny because they disqualified a lot of girls with the two Norwegians, with Sara Takanashi and with Dani [Daniela Iraschko-Stolz]. It was funny and I can’t quite understand it yet,” the ski jumper described her emotions on “ARD” after returning to Germany.
The inspectors had complained about the suits of several jumpers after the respective jumps and subsequently pronounced disqualifications. The co-favorites Germany, Norway, Japan and Austria lost all their chances of winning a medal.
For Althaus it is still incomprehensible why the world association wanted to set an example at the Olympic Games. “The two inspectors who are always with us were there. Strangely enough, they then did everything completely differently than usual, who especially checked everything again,” she noted.
Hannawald: “I get a neck there!”
The silver medalist on the normal hill did not see her own fault: “My suit was often checked beforehand in the World Cup and we didn’t change anything in the cut for the Olympics. I can’t explain why it didn’t fit.”
Ski jumping expert Sven Hannawald agreed with Althaus in the “ARD” broadcast and also clearly criticized the FIS: “What always makes me grumble and where I get a bigger neck again is that the girls really don’t care because everything was going normally up until then and suddenly everything went differently in one competition – without warning,” rumbled the former winner of the Four Hills Tournament.
Althaus meanwhile hopes that there will be a discussion with the inspectors before the next World Cup, also to have the certainty that no further exclusions will follow with the same suit: “We will clarify everything in advance,” announced the 25-year-old on.