– During the Norwegian Games, I was already considering that this is the last winter when I follow the ski jumping, Ari Saukko notes at the Suurmäki ski jumping tower of Lahti on Monday.
The statement has a weight in the milieu, which is like another home for Sauko. There he competed in the 1980s, until the fall on a small hill ended his career in 1988.
Since then, Saukko has coached dozens of Finnish and international skiers on the Lahti hills. They include 19 adult value championships and a record-breaking five-year-old winner of Central European Ski Week Janne Ahonensix medals reached Tami Kiuru and two medals Veli-Matti Lindström.
However, the love of six decades about ski jumping has faded.
The reasons are found in a jumping dress that has been nested in the sport, where the manipulation of Norwegian star jumpers, revealed in the World Cup, is just the tip of the iceberg. Cultural problems are much deeper.
It all starts from summer
A lecture at the foot of the competition line at the foot of the Suurmäki Mäkitorni Lahti Mäkitorni is about to start a presentation that is rotting in ski jumping.
Ahonen and Saukko have pledged to say this while in the World Cup eight times Arttu Pohjola Works as a mannequin.
– Everything starts from the summer, says Ahonen.
By this, Ahonen refers to the measurements made by the International Ski Association FIS, where the height of the branch is checked by athletes.
The subject rose to the surface as early as December 2020. Petter Kukkonen reported that his athlete pushed dishwashers into panties. By doing so, the athletes got more volume in their costumes.
During the summer, FIS will host a test event for each team, where his officer scans how high the branch of an athlete on his lingerie is. Only the doctor has the right to check if the jumper has tried to manipulate his branch. The inspector, on the other hand, may be the team’s own doctor.
According to Ahonen, who has created excellent networks in his sport, it is known that some of the top names have received at least five centimeters lower in summer measurements than in the previous year’s test.
– Five cents are hundreds of certain information, but rumors move much larger drops.
According to Ahonen, the national teams practice the summer measurement situation because its effect on the winter season is so great. So playing in the gray area starts months before any hill is snow.
Doping will be a benefit to second
Once the crotch has been checked, the manufacture of jumping dresses begins according to the measurements obtained from the inspection. According to the rule launched by FIS this season, the athlete is allowed to wear ten different costumes during the season.
Unlike before, none of the top names in the World Cup today wear costumes made by factory manufacturers. According to Sauko, this makes it difficult to control costumes.
– There were a few equipment manufacturers who made the jumper to the top of the size given. Most costume manufacturers now make costumes for either national jumpers or children, but the national teams make their top jumpers’ costumes practically inside four walls. Nobody knows about each other about what they do, Saukko says.
– One solution would be to remove the team’s internal costume assistants.
The men’s World Cup has seen a total of 118 jumping dresses over the last three seasons. The fifth of these was targeted at an athlete who was among the top 20 in the Cup at the time of the disc.
According to Saukko and Ahonen, the rejections are theater. They state that no costume seen in the World Cup would pass the measurement situation if the rules were properly monitored.
Currently, in the FIS rules, the inspector measures the branch of every jumper in the jumping tower before going to the boom. In the next video, Pohjola shows how a ten -centimeter costume passes the crotch test test.
According to Ahonen, the athlete is able to easily move the height of his suit by eight cents – and the most skillful.
-When the legs are spreading, the palm-sized or even larger area of the palm can easily add 5 to 10 meters more in the crotch.
Five meters in the 120 -meter big one would mean four meters in percentage. If the cross -country skier were using the strongest doping agent in endurance sports, or etho, he would not benefit from it as much as the ski jumper from his irregular but branch testing suit.
In addition to the branch measure, the load -bearing capacity of the jumping suit is influenced, among other things, by its circumference and air permeability. These FIS are only controlled by random samples after performance.
According to Sauko, FIS should invest more resources to control the rules.
– Measurements should be renewed for everyone. One formula should be followed by which the jumping coverall is made and already exists in the rules. It is not just monitored now.
– It would be possible to make a good control before every race. A few measuring points, even with waist, thighs and branch. It would not be impossible, Saukko says.
The decision to keep if not a change
Saukko stopped coaching two years ago, but he coached the Finnish national team in addition to the Nordic Kasperi Valto.
Valto won the World Cup in the Lahti Greater on Saturday, preceding this interview, the lower Continental Cup in the World Cup. In Sunday, he was rejected due to an irregular suit.
– In practice, Saturday’s victory was watered. I did not raise the boys to such a sport, Saukko says.
The Continental Cup has no prize money as the World Cup.
The otter rejects the specialty of the current rules. If the athlete is only rejected in the World Cup in the second round, his or her first round results will remain in effect. So, despite his rejection, the athlete does not fall for the last in the final results, but he drops to 30, gets one World Cup point and prize money 400 euros.
– It’s quite fucked up, Saukko says.
Finally, let’s return to the beginning of the quote that Saukko wondered at the time of the Trondheim World Cup that this winter would last for him to follow the ski jumping.
What do you think now?
– Well, I’m not canceling until the change happens.