This year’s Four Hills Tournament has so far been dominated by the Norwegian Halvor Granerud. This caused disappointment, especially in the Polish camp, because the team around Dawid Kubacki, Piotr Zyla and Co. apparently dug deep into their bag of tricks to gain an advantage. So deep that some people question whether everything is going right with the material of the Poles.
The 71st Four Hills Tournament was also not spared from discussions about the material. This time in focus: The Pole Piotr Zyla and his suit, which attracted a few suspicious looks in the first two competitions. Quite a few believe that the Pole’s suit is too wide in the crotch, exceeding the permissible limit and giving the 35-year-old more buoyancy in the air.
“This blue suit looks a bit stretchy,” former Czech ski jumper Viktor Polasek wrote in a Twitter post showing Zyla’s suit after his jump in Oberstdorf.
Former Norwegian top jumper Andreas Stjernen was also surprised and told “Dagbladet”: “This suit is extreme. It looks like it has a larger contact surface in the crotch than other jumpers.”
Stjernen added that he didn’t want to say that the Pole’s suit didn’t comply with the regulations: “But it seems as if the suit stretches downwards when he takes his legs apart. And when he closes his legs, then it comes Suit back upstairs. The Poles have definitely found a good way to sew their suit together.”
The Norwegian also doesn’t want to hear anything about cheating by the Poles because Zyla has passed all material checks so far.
“He has a lot of experience with the suits and the controls. In Mathias Hafele, Poland also has an extremely experienced technician who knows every trick,” Stjernen is convinced that the Poles dug deep into their bag of tricks when developing their suit – and themselves move him within the rules despite suspicious looks.