Hill jumping is facing big decisions, says Mika Kojonkoski. The traditional men’s team hill will almost certainly have to change its shape.
The Ski Jumping Committee of the International Ski Federation FIS is facing tough decisions. It has until next May to propose how the ski jumping competition places will be distributed for the 2026 Olympics and in which formats of team competitions the Olympic medals will be decided.
The Hill Jumping Committee consists of representatives of 24 competing countries, whose task is to prepare proposals for changes. The FIS board decides on their acceptance, but in the case of the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has the final say.
In June of this year, the IOC announced that men and women will compete for individual medals in the same sports at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina and Milan. Therefore, in the future, the women will talk about superiority in addition to the normal hill for the first time in suurmäki.
The rules also change regarding the number of athletes. In February, 40 female and 65 male jumpers qualified for the Beijing Olympics, but the number of athletes will be limited to 50 in the following five-ring winter games.
– This means that if we go with the current criteria, we will have even fewer countries, chairman of the FIS hill committee Mika Kojonkoski says.
Are the countries’ number of athletes decreasing?
Last season, in the men’s category, athletes from 18 countries achieved World Cup points. In collecting points, the top six countries, i.e. Austria, Slovenia, Germany, Norway, Japan and Poland, stood out from the rest. Each of these had the right to send five male jumpers to the Beijing Olympics.
The men’s team hill has been in the Olympic program since 1988, and each team has always had four jumpers competing. If you don’t count the host country China, only ten countries got a team of four athletes to Beijing.
Let’s emphasize: 65 male jumpers qualified for Beijing, of which the top six countries took 30 places, or 46.2 percent. If the number of places remained the same in the 2026 Games, the 30 places in the top six would make up 60 percent of the 50 race tickets.
The 11-country team competition in Beijing is the smallest in terms of number of participants in Olympic history, along with the 1988 Calgary competition. According to Kojonkoski, the number of teams must be increased in the next Olympics.
– We should get 14–15 teams there. Then under no circumstances can you go with four athletes. It is a complete impossibility, says Kojonkoski.
It is therefore a viable option that the current form of men’s team competition will no longer be seen in the future.
– Or it is jumped by three athletes.
– If we want more countries or even maintain the current number, there must be 1-2 fewer athletes per country, says Kojonkoski.
In the middle caste and smaller hill states, the reform would hardly arouse significant resistance. For example, Finnish men claimed only three places in Beijing.
A preview of what’s to come
In order to get international competition on the team level, FIS has introduced a completely new competition format to the World Cup starting this weekend.
In the competition called Super Team, teams consist of two jumpers who jump three laps instead of the normal two. After two rounds, eight countries continue to the final round that concludes the competition.
The model was tested already in September in the Grand Prix competition organized in Rasnov, Romania, in which 13 countries participated. Austria won, Finland was not involved.
Rasnov will also host a Super Team team competition also at the World Cup on February 19, 2023. Eight days earlier, the competition format debuted at the World Cup in Lake Placid, USA.
Ski jumping’s highest cup series has not been contested in the United States since 2004.
– One of the criteria for survival in the Olympics is that the sport is international, says Kojonkoski.
Super Team is also being tested in the Women’s World Cup. There, Japan’s Zao will hold the only race on January 14, 2023.
– Now we are raking in what kind of competition formats and what quota (number of places) we will go to the next Olympics with. We have until next spring to do this, says Kojonkoski.
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