Winter Games 2022
Disaster at Olympic premiere – ski jumpers rage after suit chaos over officials
Stefan Horngacher (left) and Maximilian Mechler, the two national ski jumping coaches for men and women, are stunned after they found out about the disqualification of their jumper Katharina Althaus
© Angelika Warmuth / DPA
Even the day after, the ski jumping scene is in great excitement. The echo of suits allegedly not conforming to the rules in the mixed competition in ski jumping reverberates. The association says nothing at first, but there are clear announcements from active people.
After Zhangjiakou’s memorable Olympic mixed with five disqualifications, the international ski jumping scene is concerned about its public image. The fined Katharina Althaus accused the world association Fis of having “destroyed” women’s ski jumping, other responsible persons or ex-officials spoke unanimously of a “disaster” – and all this on the largest possible stage. The Finnish materials controller Mika Jukkara, who took over the job from Joseph Gratzer last spring, was the focus of criticism.
The Austrian attacked his successor head-on after the remarkable series of disqualifications. “I have the impression that he wants to change everything from one day to the next and change the control activity. For me, he is not the right man on the pitch at the moment, I guess you were wrong,” Gratzer told the “Tiroler Tageszeitung”.
According to the Fis regulations, every athlete is completely measured before the season. Among other things, data such as height, arm length, leg length, step length or weight are collected. Based on the numbers recorded, the appropriate material such as skis and the suit must be used for the jumps. In the Zhangjiakou cases, the suits of the five disqualified jumpers involved stride length. According to the rules, the suit may have a maximum distance of three centimeters from the body in the crotch.
In addition to the German Althaus, one jumper each from Japan and Austria and two Norwegians were affected by the exclusions because of the allegedly incorrect suits. The medals in the sportingly devalued competition went behind Olympic champion Slovenia to the team of the Russian Olympic Committee and Canada – two absolute outsiders.
Althaus: “We pulled the arse card. That’s how you destroy nations”
Althaus and her fellow campaigners were very upset that the long-awaited mixed debut at the Winter Games went so badly wrong. “Our names are all there now and we pulled the arse card. That destroys nations, funding and the whole sport unfairly,” said the 25-year-old Althaus. She cried in the outrun of the ski jump at Zhangjiakou. Germany’s overall World Cup leader Karl Geiger spoke of “a bottomless cheek”.
But what has to be done now? The longtime incumbent Gratzer advocates taking a more lenient course. “Our premise has always been: Material control should never be the top priority in a competition. It’s a marginal phenomenon that guarantees fairness and equal opportunities. That obviously didn’t work out in this case,” said the 66-year-old. Ex-national coach Werner Schuster hopes that the messed up Olympic jumping will be an opportunity to talk about more transparency in the complex sport.
Andreas Bauer, after all a member of the equipment commission and the jumping committee of the Fis, also attacked the world association. Several world-class athletes were literally presented in front of an audience of millions. “This is not how a sport is allowed to present itself on the world’s largest sporting stage. That was a scandal,” said former women’s national coach Bauer in an interview with the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” (Tuesday).
Forbidden tricks? “We’re not stupid!”
Team manager Horst Hüttel firmly rejected the fact that it might actually have been tricked. “Not at all, we’re not stupid,” said the 53-year-old on ARD and explained: “It’s the biggest showcase that girls ever have. There’s no risk, so I put my hand in it Fire.” Especially since Althaus wore exactly the same suit in the individual competition, in which she won the silver medal on Saturday, which was not objected to there.
Althaus was not doing well the day after the disqualification either. “My heart is broken,” she wrote on Instagram. Althaus tried to distract himself, said team manager Hüttel. “They were just in the Olympic village to get their mind off things. But of course she’s still frustrated and you can’t expect that to be shaken off in one day, the pain was too deep for that.”