Manipulation for suits: “Watsche” and secret pictures: Ski jumps rage continues

Ski jumping boss Sandro pertile sat on the press podium on the spar with a broken hair and fought for the image of his sport. A total of eight Norwegians – including the world champions Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang – has suspended the World Association FIS in the scandal for deliberately manipulated suits in just 24 hours.

But that should only be the beginning of a possibly years of dealing. “The damage is already enormous,” admitted pertile. His association, which has not given a good picture in the past few days, is under massive pressure from all sides: Media, quick solutions are required after the fraud of the World Cup host documented by video, and the World Cup continues to be comprehensive by the other teams.

Little clarity according to the press conference

One day after the first five suspends, the FIS followed: after the top athletes Lindvik, Forfang and coach Magnus Brevig and two other officials are now also closed to Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal, Robert Johansson and Robin Pedersen. Particularly bizarre: These three athletes had completed jumps just a few minutes earlier during the official training session in Oslo.

In other questions, pertile and FIS general secretary Michel Vion referred to the ongoing studies. The round did not bring much clarity. It will take a lot of time to answer all questions. After all, the evaluation of the confiscated suits gave that there were no abnormalities on the jumping clothing among the ski jumpers and the two teams of the Nordic combination.

Hannawald complains “audacity” of the Norwegians

But not only the FIS is verbally under fire, but also and especially Norway’s ski jumper. The version of Lindvik and Forfang, according to which you don’t want to have known anything about all the fraud stitches, is very angry with many rivals and experts.

The German ski jumping legend Sven Hannawald scolded particularly loudly. “How can you be so brazen and somehow feel that you feel like I said that I couldn’t do anything?

The World Cup host had attached an illegal stiff ribbon for suits to ensure more stability after the jump. In the scene, almost nobody believes that as described are individual cases in just one competition. “The type of audacity that is shown there exceeds any ideas,” Hannawald scolded in the ARD sports show podcast. For all other jumpers, this is “a waddom in the face”.

Secret pictures from the warm -up room

This is how Olympic champion Severin Freund, who doubts Norway’s presentation of the unique fraud. “Firstly, it is not credible because you have to test it in advance. It is routinely and you know what you do. Why would you do it if you have already done a gold medal on the small hill? That doesn’t make any sense,” said Freund on ZDF.

As if the situation for the FIS and all nations were not already complicated enough, images appeared again late Wednesday evening. In contrast to the Norwegians, who manipulated suits in a taped stadium lodge, this time it is not the content of the material that is particularly delicate, but the place of the recordings.

Jakub Balcerski from the portal “Sport.pl” shared the photos of athletes from Austria, which he had from anonymous source, in the warm -up room on the ski jumping ski jump of Trondheim. Very few selected people come in this area of ​​the system. The filming, photography and publishing in and from these areas is strictly prohibited by the World Association FIS. The Austrian Ski Association (ÖSV) did not want to comment on the secret photos on request.

The rest of the season has high priority for the World Association

Although the author indicates abnormalities in gloves, shoes and the upper part of the suit, it himself admits that there is no evidence or real evidence of fraud. Last Saturday, Austria, as one of the first nations, took a protest against the start of the Norwegians and subsequently demanded from FIS to cancel all the host results of the host.

But the World Cup consequences are not yet the focus of the FIS. The World Association wants to end the season properly and plans this – in addition to the eight suspenders – especially with a temporarily tightened set of rules.

FIS takes control of the suits

From now on, the athletes are only allowed to compete with a jump suit by the end of March. It must be a suit that has already been equipped with an identification chip this winter. A second suit can be available as a backup if the first breaks.

Every selected suit is to be checked with the athletes in front of today’s World Cup on the Holmenkollen in Oslo. The jump suits are collected by officials from FIS after the competition. They should be spent around 30 minutes before the next training or competition.

The Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi won the World Cup jumping in the Norwegian capital. At the Holmenkollen, the Olympic champion won from 2022 to 129.5 and 127 meters clearly ahead of Jan Hörl from Austria and the German Karl Geiger. Andreas Wellinger fell back to seventh place in the second round. Philipp Raimund finished fifth and completed a strong German team result that has not been experienced for a long time in the World Cup.