Olympic champion with the team at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing and six-time medalist at the Nordic World Ski Championships: Jan Hörl, who took second place in the overall World Cup last winter, is one of the top stars in the ski jumping scene. No wonder that the Austrian’s opinion on the mega-scandal surrounding the Norwegians’ suit cheating at the last World Cup is an important one.
The Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim in February 2025 shocked the ski jumping world after it came to light that the hosts had demonstrably tampered with their jump suits. Two jumpers, Johann André Forfang and Marius Lindvik, have now even been excluded from FIS competitions, but the duo will be allowed to take part again in the upcoming winter. Not a big problem for Jan Hörl.
“The matter with the Norwegian ski jumpers is over for me. They are all good athletes and our relationship will be completely normal at our next meeting. However, honesty is the most important thing in sport. If everything goes well in this regard this year, that will be great,” the 27-year-old told “skijumping.pl”.
Mild words that not everyone on Hörl’s team would probably agree with.
“The Austrian team is like a little family”
“They have brought the entire sport of ski jumping into disrepute and act as if they were the victims of the whole thing. But it is the entire sport of ski jumping,” said Hörl’s ÖSV colleague Daniel Tschofenig, overall World Cup winner from the previous season, recently in an interview with the “Tiroler Tageszeitung”.
“It can also happen that you get disqualified if you’re just a centimeter too tall. But I find this tactical crap to be disgusting,” the ÖSV Adler continued.
Despite different assessments, there is no anger within the ÖSV. “We’re a big team and everyone works great together. […] The Austrian team is like a small family,” emphasized Hörl.