Ski jumping – Sven Hannawald: “Madness, they risk our sport!”

Mr. Hannawald, you have criticized the Norwegians’ suits throughout the entire Nordic Ski World Cup. Was that just a suspicion or was there any concrete information behind it?

For a long time I have noticed that some jumpers are not competitive with their technology at the beginning of the season and that this changes in the course of winter without the athletes switching the jump. Of course I’m talking about Norway the most because I see extreme suits. But I also see Groß henchle-up world champion Domen Prevc and the Slovenes. Your jump style didn’t work at the beginning of the season. Actually, you have to jump technically clean again with the tight suits. If the suits are tight, you don’t have the area that you can just throw yourself forward, nothing will last. But now that works again: the image of ski jumping has shifted and that has something to do with the suits. But you can’t just say: do what you want, there are rules!

The German ski jumpers were strong at the beginning of the season and then fully broken into.

How can it be that we speak of the most successful German season start at the beginning of the season since there were ski jumping. And two months later we are on the way to the worst season of history. You cannot install so many mistakes in a jump. We discuss whether the German national coach is still the right one. Although he prepared his jumper for the applicable regulations in summer with a lot of financial effort. What is now being led to absurdity.

At the World Cup in Trondheim, Karl Geiger also came across fourth place directly from the crisis due to a supposedly too large suit and his sudden flight. Were the German ski jumpers so compulsory that they somehow had to move in terms of suits?

Naturally. The suits are the most important part of the flight system, and if you are not competitive there, because others are exciting the regulations far across the border, you have no chance. Karl doesn’t do that voluntarily. Karl just doesn’t want to throw it all year round in which he has prepared. Just because there are two or three idiots that start again. And then of course he wants to keep up.

Interview

dpa/Angelika Warmuth

After the manipulation scandal in ski jumping and the combination at the Nordic Ski World Cup in Trondheim, the world champions Marius Linvik and Johann Andre Forfang from Norway were temporarily suspended. The International Ski Association FIS also blocked four trainers and material experts from the World Cup guest nation and drastically tightened the jumpsuit rules. Germany’s last four-hill tour winner Sven Hannawald50, today TV expert at ARD, in an interview with the fraudsters and the FIS.

Norway, with its suit tailoring and World Cup manipulations with stiff ribbons.

We’re talking about obvious fraud. When I read the posts of the fraudsters Lindvik and Forfang, I got sick. You don’t want to have known about what happened to your suits. We talk about one of the most sensitive sports in the world. Do you want to kid us all or what about you? If I cheat, I have to stand for it. With all the consequences. Every ski jumper controls his material x times. Because I go into a free aviation. If there is something else, I may fall. And in the worst case, I can die. What the two of them now tell is a mockery and no longer to top in trimosis.

Do you also believe in a systematic Norwegian material manipulation over the sports with a view to the disqualification of the Norwegian combined Graabak?

In every sport you become suspicious when athletes blatantly stop or suddenly improve. A Graabak had no chance of jumping in the season, then he does some preparation World Cup course and is a top world. Also a riiber who has been jumping a different suit for years for years can also jump than the rest of the combiners, raises questions. If you are ten, 15 meters away from the normal field, it can be seen for every naive blind that something works differently and is measured with different levels.

Her ex-colleague Martin Schmitt has explained that there are methods to trick the controls by making certain movements. Do you see it the same way?

Yes, I even saw that on camera images. You can see very clearly what some ski jumpers are at the top of the start tower so that they can get through the step measurement. But when they take two normal steps, the step of the suit goes where it is in the air and therefore they can jump as they jump.

But that actually indicates that the FIS material controller Christian Kathol is also in the boat and looks away during manipulations.

The rules are incredibly complicated. What annoys me about Catholic is what he said about manipulations at the World Cup despite the videos present: he knows the suits, he knows the seams. The chips are safe, you can see a manipulation immediately. Two hours later I know that you can order the scanners to read the chips from Amazon and also easily buy the chips.

What is the solution?

Just like we have measurements from the body with 3D scanners, we need a scanner that can measure the suit on the body before jumping. Then you have this inconsistent person out of the controls. I can completely understand what happens there. There are clear rules. But now such a jum is coming to me with a two millimeter suit. Then I look at it. He looks at me. What happens to people? Two millimeters, that’s nothing. What does man do? He says: Please, sew the suit and never do it again! That’s why I say: a computer is a shit whether it is 0.05 millimeters. It shows red, the jumper is disqualified. If the jumpers no longer feel scope, they will automatically come in their suits with half a centimeter air.

Marius Lindvik or Johann Andre Forfang were temporarily suspended by FIS. The right decision?

In any case! I would completely cut and lock these two candidates. Then everyone who has used the same crap gets a guilty conscience. I have no pity with the two anymore, as is now the case. For the World Cup, I would delete all the results from you, lose all medals. You should think about the future of our sport jeopardizing. You have to give them air for the brain, which is apparently completely foggy.

Legally, this will probably be difficult to enforce with the deletion of the World Cup results.

Yes, but I don’t care. You have to set exactly the example that seems to be needed in ski jumping. What does this Ethics Commission do at FIS? Drink coffee or what? You don’t have the impression that the FIS is really interested in clarifying this.

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A decision is that in the future every jumper will only have a jumpsuit until the end of the season. This should be closed before and after the competitions.

This is now a quick shot in front of the bow. Ski jumpers need their material for their safety. Not anywhere. Do you know if an external person does what on the suit? In the long term you have to make the rules as easy as possible and eliminate the human factor. We have a good example. The air permeability of the suits is already checking a machine. And if 0.01 is displayed, Game is over. Then there is no longer this shit. The machine is cold, it has no heart, no feeling, nothing at all.

Is that the worst crisis since the anorexia scandal around the turn of the millennium?

It is worse now because we speak of fraud. The Norwegians showed criminal energy. A rigorous sign from FIS is now needed. Basically, we have the advantage in ski jumping that we are actually doping -free from the physical. Diuretics to reduce body weight are on the screen and growth hormones do nothing because the athletes otherwise become too heavy. And then the Norwegians start with this shit. Madness, they risk our sport!