The ski jumping scandal for Norwegian manipulations reaches the next escalation level. One day after the cheating on the suits of the World Cup hosts, sports director Jan Erik Aalbu is open to fraud.
Norway’s ski jumping team deliberately cheated at the Nordic Ski World Cup. Sports director Jan Erik Aalbu admitted this at a press conference in the team hotel on Sunday afternoon.
“We have made changes to the suits in the knowledge that they are not legal. As I see it, we cheated. We tried to trick the system,” said the Norwegian, who added: “This is unacceptable.”
At night, “everything was done to clarify the incident,” said Aalbu. Supervisors of the national team had admitted that the suits of Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang had been incorporated “reinforced threads” in order to gain an advantage.
Aalbu confessed: “We all disappointed who love ski jumping. I would like to apologize to the other nations, the World Cup organizers and the fans. I am shocked myself about these revelations.” When asked why the suits of the jumpers were manipulated, even though the World Cup has so far been a single success for the hosts, the sports director puzzled: “I also asked myself this question.”
Norway coach Bevig is missing at the press conference
At the same time, Aalbu emphasized that manipulation on the suits had been answered without consulting the jumpers. Already on Saturday he took full responsibility for the scandal. He did not want to name the name of those responsible. Head coach Magnus Brevig, who was seen in the manipulation video, was missing from the press conference.
On Saturday, during the competition from the Großschanze at the Nordic Ski World Cup, Norway’s sports director at the “ARD” microphone still claimed that his employees had only worked on the suits for the upcoming RAW Air competitions. This is a normal process, the protest of the associations from Austria, Slovenia and Poland therefore has no basis. He had also denied the conscious manipulation later, so now he rowed back.
Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang had been disqualified after the jumps from the World Association FIS. The associations from Austria, Slovenia and Poland had also called for all the results of the Norwegians to be canceled at the World Cup. On the video that was circulating in jumping circles and in the media, it was seen how, in the presence of Brevig, the World Cup suits were probably tailored during the night of Saturday.